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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-07-22 Daily Xml
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30-YEAR PLAN FOR GREATER ADELAIDE

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:08): I have a supplementary question arising from the answer. Does the minister accept the statement in his own DPA for the Mount Barker urban expansion that the purpose of the DPA is to support the expansion of urban areas in the Mount Barker district to help meet the population targets in the 30-year plan? If so, why does the 30-year plan use the most inflated Australian Bureau of Statistics projections? Is it, in fact, incorrect for the minister to assert that the 30-year plan is a response to inevitable population growth, when in fact it is a plan to achieve the government's desired population growth?

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) (15:09): When you plan the future growth of Adelaide, shouldn't you plan on the basis of what is the most likely outcome? The growth that is projected under the 30-year plan for Adelaide is exactly, or very close to, the rate of growth that we have actually experienced in this city in the last year or two. It is about 1.3 or 1.4 per cent.

I should say that, even at that rate of growth, there are parts of the country that are growing by at least double that rate. The sort of population target that we have under the 30-year plan, the projection of 560,000 people in the next 30 years, is the population growth you would get in south-east Queensland, where I think it is about 80,000 a year. So, you would reach it in about six or seven years, and Perth is much the same.

That is compared with the 30-year growth we are getting here. So, I would suggest that the population projections that are the basis for the 30-year plan are in fact realistic and are the sort of rates of growth we will be getting in the next few years. If it turns out that our growth is less than that, and it takes 40 years to get the 30-year growth, is it still not important that we plan for where those growth corridors might be? Is it not appropriate that we should start our planning now? Given that the current rates of growth we have had are commensurate with the 30-year plan, then the 30-year plan gives us a very useful guide as to how we can accommodate population growth of that size over the next 30 years.

If it happens more quickly or takes longer, at least we will be prepared. Surely that is better than doing nothing and just waiting for the sort of ad hoc planning we have had in the past where, around some of the growth areas, we have had fringe development and small rural living extending urban sprawl.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: I look forward to hearing the alternative. Does the leader think, like the member for Schubert, that the Adelaide expansion will be at Sedan and Cambrai? Having been through there once or twice, I have not noticed that there has been a lot of anticipation of growth out there with people moving into those areas. I had heard that a few bikie groups were living out that way and have been accommodating that area, but there is certainly no indication that in Cambrai and Sedan there has been a great deal of anticipation of expected growth. They are indeed very sleepy towns. I am sure that if there was to be any suggested growth out there we would probably get members opposite opposing it anyway.

To get back to the supplementary question of the Hon. Mr Parnell, the population targets I suggest are reasonable projections based on the sort of growth we have seen in the past couple of years. Is it not better, if you are planning, to be using growth at the higher level rather than using lower levels of growth that you might well exceed and therefore have problems with because you have not planned properly?

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