Cities minister Alan Tudge says Infrastructure Australia’s call for better infrastructure planning aligns with the Coalition’s program, but shadow minister Anthony Albanese says it highlights the Government’s “abysmal” record.
Infrastructure Australia on Tuesday released a reform paper warning that without better planning for essential infrastructure, Australian cities would be crippled by unprecedented housing growth.
Tudge, the Coalition’s minister for cities, urban infrastructure and population, welcomed the report, saying its recommendations reflected “key pillars” of the Government’s population and cities policies.
“[At Wednesday’s COAG meeting] the prime minister will be sitting down with premiers and chief ministers and asking them to help address the nation’s growing pains through a new, bottom-up approach to migration and growth,” Tudge said.
“We are also delivering on the report’s recommendation to better strategically plan for Australia’s future population. Integral to this has been linking population to my portfolio responsibilities of infrastructure and cities to better plan for future growth as a first step.”
Tudge’s interpretation of the report was in stark contrast to Labor’s shadow minister for infrastructure, transport, cities and regional development, Anthony Albanese.
Albanese viewed the report as an indictment of the Coalition’s infrastructure record since the Abbott Government was elected in 2013.
“[The report] echoes Federal Labor’s concern that the Coalition Government has failed to ensure investment in vital infrastructure keeps pace with the growth of our cities,” Albanese said.
“The report tells us that ‘our largest cities are playing catch-up in delivering infrastructure to support population growth’ and it calls on government to act now to better sequence infrastructure to meet the needs of urban communities.”
Albanese said the report’s advice for more collaboration across the three tiers of government to ensure better planning was more closely aligned with Labor’s policies than that of the Coalition.
“These principles underpin Labor’s City Partnerships policy, which was announced in July this year and would replace the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government’s weak, politicised City Deals.”
Tudge defended the Coalition’s infrastructure funding program.
“We are committed to dealing with the uneven distribution of population growth between increasingly congested major cities and regional areas that are crying out for more people,” Tudge said.
“We also know that congestion costs the national economy billions of dollars each year and significantly impacts the productivity and liveability of Australia’s capital cities.
“That’s why the Coalition lifted expenditure as soon as we came to office and in the last budget, allocating $75 billion to infrastructure under a 10-year rolling investment pipeline.”
Australia’s premiers, transport and cities ministers and prime minister are meeting at Wedensday’s COAG meeting to discuss population growth.