Growth debate bubbles to surface
A recent Four corners and Q&A re-examined Australia’s growth; particularly our nation’s population growth. Jane Fitzgerald, NSW Executive Director took part in the Q&A program and outlined the need to plan well for our growth with long term investment in infrastructure and better planning for our cities.
Australia experienced a population growth rate in the year to June 2017 of 1.6 per cent, 36.8 per cent natural, 63.2 per cent net overseas migration.
Recent reports from Infrastructure Australia, the Grattan Institute, and the Reserve Bank of Australia all provide solutions to better managing growth through improving our current systems for planning our cities and delivering infrastructure.
All reports make recommendations to reform the systems we have in place to better meet the demands of growth particularly when it comes to housing; in the case of the Reserve Bank of Australia, by reforming the approach local councils take to zoning, we could cut $490,000 from the price of a Sydney home.
The Grattan Institute suggests that by building an extra ,000 homes a year for a decade could leave Australian house prices 5 to 20 per cent lower than they would be otherwise. To build more homes, State governments should fix planning rules to allow more homes to be built in inner and middle-ring suburbs of our largest cities.
Infrastructure Australia recommends governments should improve the transparency and sophistication of current strategic planning practices deliver better planning outcomes for the long-term growth of our cities.
The message is clear; we need to improve our current systems and policy so that we can manage and get the best from our growth, not cut it.
NSW is already on its way; a big infrastructure investment and the leadership of the Greater Sydney Commission and recent reforms to the planning system is starting to make up ground on years of neglect; but we need to do more.
We need the Federal Government to incentivise good infrastructure and planning decisions from State Governments so that good planning is supported and infarstrcure is more often aligned with growth.
We need to reintroduce the National Housing Supply Council; scrapped by the Abbott Government in 2013, to provide national oversight of housing supply, demand and affordability, and make recommendation on where the system can be improved.
And in NSW, we need to see reforms like the reintroduction of the Metropolitan Development Program to monitor housing and land supply; and an alignment between the strategies and actions of local councils and that of our State Government and Greater Sydney Commission so the community sees appropriate local development.
Reforms such as these mean we can better manage the outcomes from growth and their impact on our present communities while still benefitting from an open and growing nation.
Our country’s past is filled with instances where we have done the tough things, made the difficult decisions, led on the difficult reforms; now is the time to lead on growth so we can continue to see the benefits.