27 May 2011
As foreshadowed in our last Member Alert, the Federal Government has released its “sustainable population strategy”.
The strategy sensibly avoids imposing any damaging population caps on the nation or on our major cities. This is a welcome turnaround from the Federal Government. Prior to the release of the high-profile Urban Taskforce People Power report earlier this year, the Federal Government had been planning on declaring that parts of Australia (such as Sydney) had reached their “carrying capacity”.
The final strategy correctly observes that:
- changes in the way resources are used; and
- developments in technology allow us to sensibly grow without unsustainable impacts.
The strategy’s definition of “sustainable Australia” is also practical. Sustainability is a highly subjective idea, but we can see that people are voting with their feet to be part of many growth communities across Australia. As the strategy says, sustainable communities are those that have the characteristics that make them places where people want to work, live and build a future. It’s the residents, prospective residents, workers and prospective workers of a community that must ultimately judge its sustainability, not Federal Government population planners.
The first principle that guides the strategy is “freedom of choice”. This adopts the policy approach advocated by the Urban Taskforce. Anyone who’s been involved in land use planning over the last 10 years would know that many government officials have little time for the idea that homebuyers should be able to choose the kind of housing they buy. The public debate about urban development is full of people wanting to tell others what kind of home they should own.
In March the Urban Taskforce released the People Power report which modelled the economic consequences if the sustainable population strategy was used to freeze the size of Australia’s major cities.
The report found that a government policy capping a city’s population at current levels will lead to:
- an 18.3 per cent decline for Sydney’s residential property prices over ten years;
- a 15.3 per cent decline for Melbourne;
- a 14.7 per cent decline for Brisbane;
- 6.6 per cent decline for Adelaide; and
- a 12.6 per cent decline for Perth.
The People Power report found that a population cap imposed across Australia’s five biggest cities could reduce national income by $5,000 per person within 10 years.
We’re pleased that the Federal Government has diverted from the “Sydney/Melbourne/South East Queensland is full” approach, but it is disappointing that there is no solid commitment to federal infrastructure investment to help tackle the sense of congestion being experienced in some cities. It’s also regrettable that the document includes no plan of action to free-up restrictive planning laws, although there are some important statements of principle.
More information on the Federal government’s sustainable population strategy is here.
