Having addressed both the Urban Transport World international conference in Sydney and the Australian Roads Summit in Brisbane in the last two months, Australian Local Government Association President (ALGA), Councillor Geoff Lake, has made it clear that the forecast population increase will be the major challenge for the future of the country’s roads.
Councillor Lake said Australia’s population is predicted to increase by 60 per cent to 36 million by 2050, most of which will be accommodated in our cities.
“The planning and infrastructure development challenges to meet this increase are significant if we are to maintain – or better still – improve the amenity and economic functioning of our cities,” he said. “If that is not challenging enough, this population increase will have to be accommodated in a period of uncertain access to oil, and – regardless of the outcome in Copenhagen – a need for our cities to reduce their carbon footprint. The one thing that is clear is that we have an interesting and unpredictable decade ahead of us.”
Councillor Lake said that the Prime Minister’s speech from late 2009, titled, ‘Building a Big Australia: Future Planning Needs of our Major Cities’, signalled and foreshadowed new national leadership in planning the future of cities. Councillor Lake welcomed this increased involvement and called on Local Government to take a more coordinated approach, using regional structures that give councils a stronger capacity to work with Federal and State Governments on major infrastructure needs.
“In a country like Australia, with our three levels of government and centralised taxation system, it is not just important, but essential that the three levels of government work effectively together,” Councillor Lake said. “Under the Rudd Government, we have seen COAG go from an annual talkfest to a sharper, reform focused body which now meets four times a year.
“You can call it Cooperative Federalism, or you can call it whatever you like – I’ll just call it a good thing. There are very few policy issues facing Australia – including transport – which can be solved solely at one level of government. Developing COAG into a more robust and effective structure for enabling the collaboration across the three levels of government to respond to policy priorities, such as in transport, must be a priority.”
Councillor Lake said that while Federal and State Governments have the role of big picture planning for cities, Local Government’s role is to ensure that services and facilities are provided at the local community level, and this means dealing with people on a more personal level.
“I want to highlight two specific examples outside of our role in roads and issue advocacy of how Local Government is playing its part in improving urban transport links,” he said. “These include providing community transport and creating and encouraging healthy spaces and places.”
Councillor Lake said the Henry Tax Review has identified funding arrangements for roads as an area ripe for microeconomic reform through the development of a system of direct road user charging.
“A road user charging regime would provide the basis for a source of ongoing funding for local roads and address the anomaly of the lack of a direct link between local road usage and funding,” he said.
