POPULATION TARGETS

The Hon. M. PARNELL (14:46): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question about population targets.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: On Friday, BankSA and Access Economics released their latest Trends report. The report stated that the state's population would reach the two million mark by the year 2038. This is 10 years later than the two million by 2029 population target that underpins the Water for Good plan and the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide. The reasons for this marked slowdown are not surprising, and they include a tightening of regulations by the federal government in relation to international students qualifying for permanent residence, the high Australian dollar and the ongoing political debate at the federal level about the wisdom of a big Australia.

The two million by 2029 population target was premised on an extremely optimistic triumvirate of high fertility rates, positive interstate migration and expansive international migration. In the background technical document to the 30-year plan, which, incidentally, has disappeared from the Department of Planning and Local Government's website, the justification for the higher population target was based on just one to two years of population growth, not the long-term authoritative forecast of the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Getting the population projections right has huge implications for how much land needs to be released on the urban fringe to meet demand and the time frame for ensuring our water security. In an answer to a previous question on this issue in September last year, the minister said:

The projections adopted for the 30-year plan were produced by a team of very experienced and highly regarded demographers and statisticians within the Department of Planning and Local Government using ABS data.

My understanding is that it is consultants outside the department who were largely responsible for preparing the population figures but, nevertheless, I have recently been informed that the demography unit within DPLG has been severely targeted under the Public Service budget cuts, with a proposed reduction of five positions and a proposal for significant functions to be outsourced. My questions are:

1. Will there be reductions in the staffing and functions of the demography unit at DPLG and, if so, how many staff will be reduced and what functions will be outsourced?

2. Will the outsourced functions go to the same consultants who assisted in the preparation of the population forecast for the 30-year plan?

3. What will be the impact of outsourcing on the collaboration and data sharing arrangements that currently exist between DPLG and the ABS?

4. Do you accept the need to review the time frame for fringe land release around metropolitan Adelaide in the wake of the latest population forecast?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:49): In relation to the latter question, I thought I effectively addressed that yesterday in relation to a question from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, when I indicated that if we took the fluctuations in that growth rate from each year and projected out 30 years, based on that we would have targets out all over the place. Sometimes we can expect that there will be a decline in growth rates, other years they will increase. What is important is that we do plan for the future.

As I indicated yesterday, if the growth rate declines, it will simply mean that, if we have planned properly for 30 years, it will effectively be a plan for longer than 30 years. If we have a higher growth rate, it will be fewer than 30 years that we will need to have that planning in place. Either way, I would have thought that it does not remove the need for planning. Thirty years seems to me like the ideal sort of projection one should be considering into the future.

Obviously, you try to make your projection as accurate as possible, based on the best information at the time. However, as I have also said in this house in past years, I am sure that, in 30 years' time, the outcome inevitably will be somewhat different from what we are predicting now. That is also why we need to update our predictions regularly. Indeed, just as population projections are updated regularly, so should we look at our housing and employment estimates.

The Housing and Employment Land Supply Program (HELSP), which I announced in this house just a couple of weeks ago, is to be updated every 12 months, and that is how one can take into account movements in actual demand and requirements, and we will need to do that. Again, I would like to make the point that the amount of zoned-ready land within the urban growth boundary has been declining for some time—it is something like six or seven years, or thereabouts.

That is lower than the government would wish, which was a 15-year target recommended by the planning and development review. We would like to have sufficient land on there to provide some stability over a 15-year period, and that is something we hope to address within the next year or two when current rezoning exercises are completed. I think that should address the issues in relation to the latter part of the honourable member's question.

The honourable member also asked about staff issues within the Department of Planning and Local Government. In relation to the arrangement of staff within that department, the targets were announced in the budget. There is to be some reduction from about the 180 or so members within the department; there will be a relatively small reduction over that period of time. It is really up to the chief executive to handle how those reductions will be achieved.

What I can tell the honourable member is that we will ensure that the department has adequate resources to deal with the demographic issues. There may not be a need for us to duplicate services that are available elsewhere. If the chief executive of the department determines that the best way to meet those targets is to reduce resources in that area, that is something for which he would have my support. However, I will take that part on notice and seek to get the honourable member some direct information in relation to what the impact will be upon the department. However, I can assure the honourable member that we will certainly have sufficient resources to ensure that the state's population targets can be adequately monitored by the Department of Planning and Local Government.