05 March 2010
Todays release of the State of Australian Cities Report 2010 is a sign of strong Federal Government interest in our cities, according to the Urban Taskforce.
The Federal Government needs to introduce a permanent rolling program of funding large-scale urban infrastructure, Mr Gadiel said.
States and territory governments should be required to commit to housing targets and be held to them.
Mr Gadiel said that recent national efforts to overcome road-blocks to housing development had not yet yielded major benefits.
The Council of Australian Governments recently published a report of its Reform Council that found there was an apparent lack of progress with a poor history of national efforts to harmonise development assessment processes.
The report said that COAG has requested that the Local Government and Planning Ministers Council expedite development assessment reform on several occasions since 2006. … COAG had yet to receive any tangible proposals from the ministerial council on reform proposals to be implemented nationally aimed at greater harmonisation of systems across Australia.
We welcome steps by the Federal Government to publish information about the state of our cities and the state of our housing supply,” Mr Gadiel said.
The next step should be a commitment to a permanent annual funding allocation by the Federal Government for large scale urban infrastructure projects, such as public transport and motorways.
Such a scheme will give the Federal Government leverage to secure commitments from the state and territories on development targets.
State and territories should then be penalised if they fail to meet their agreed goals.
The Urban Taskforce is a property development industry group, representing Australias most prominent property developers and equity financiers.
For every $1 million in construction expenditure, 27 jobs are created throughout the broader economy.
The construction activity made possible by property developers contributes $78 billion to the national economy each year and creates 849,000 direct jobs.
