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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-10-27 Daily Xml
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30-YEAR PLAN FOR GREATER ADELAIDE

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:43): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning a question regarding the 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: The 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide was adopted as part of a state planning strategy in February this year after extensive community consultation, including feedback from local government and industry representatives. One of the key objectives of this plan is to identify sufficient land supply to meet demand for housing and jobs from the population growth anticipated in the next three decades and to do that in a way that maintains Adelaide's enviable home affordability and avoids market volatility.

Some of the land that has been identified within the plan is in Adelaide's urban fringe such as Mount Barker, Gawler and Roseworthy, prompting accusations that South Australia's food security is somewhat under threat. Will the minister explain how the 30-year plan addresses the issue of protecting primary production and whether these fears about our future food security are warranted?

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) (14:44): I thank the honourable member for his important question. The 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide has already been incorporated into the South Australian planning strategy and I believe has broad support within the community for its central aims of locating the majority of new housing within our current urban lands, particularly along transport corridors.

By setting aside a net land supply of 10,650 hectares to create new growth areas, including 14 new developments centred on metropolitan transport hubs within our upgraded rail network, the plan aims to leave 80 per cent of suburban Adelaide largely untouched and protect up to 375,000 hectares of significant primary production areas and 115,000 hectares of land of environmental significance. As part of the process of bringing some of that land into a 15-year pipeline of zoned land ready for purpose supply, the government has embarked on several development plan amendments that, in lay terms, rezone the land for new uses, such as for residential housing and employment.

That does not mean that we have not begun the process of rezoning some of the urban infill land, but as part of the process we have moved initially to rezone areas such as Mt Barker and Gawler East on the urban fringe, and therefore they currently appear to be receiving the most attention from the anti-growth lobby and sections of the media. One of the arguments against rezoning some of this land from rural and rural living to residential and other uses appears to be some concern about a threat to South Australia's food security; that somehow the best farming land is being targeted in a way that endangers our ability to feed ourselves.

One of the plan's policies is to prevent the fragmentation of primary production land by restricting subdivision to maintain viable and productive land use. We are working with local governments, including the Adelaide Hills, Onkaparinga and Barossa councils on how to better protect the productive farmland in the Hills, the Willunga basin, the Barossa Valley and Two Wells-Virginia from being subdivided into smaller, less productive farmlets. The plan also provides opportunities for the expansion of horticultural production north of the Gawler River using recycled water as appropriate from existing sources and new growth areas.

However, we need to be clear about the state of food production in South Australia before we begin giving in to blatantly shallow scare campaigns such as the issue of food security. An undeniable fact in this debate is that the value of food produced in South Australia has been growing at nearly 4 per cent a year during the past 13 years; much faster than the population growth of 1.8 per cent a year. This government continues to work with the food industry to meet domestic and international demand. This productivity capacity will not be impinged on by the land supply pipeline being put in place as part of the 30-year plan. If anything, it will support the adoption of more efficient farming practices linked to secure supplies of water and freight infrastructure.

Growing Australian and world population and demand for food are an opportunity for South Australian food producers. South Australia and Australia are currently large net exporters of food. Australia exports about 10 times the volume of food that it imports. For example, South Australian production of wheat in 2009-10 was 4 million tonnes—and that was not a particularly good year; it will be much better this year with the weather, hopefully—compared with annual Australian human consumption of less than 2.5 million tonnes. So, this state produces almost twice the entire Australian consumption of wheat.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation indicates that Australia is rated equal first among all countries as a net exporter of food and equal first among developed countries as having the highest proportion of consumption from domestically produced food. So, clearly, we are not about to starve due to the rezoning of some less productive land on the Adelaide urban fringes. Neither are we becoming beholden to imports to feed our nation. South Australia imports food for a range of reasons, including consumer demand for products not produced here, such as coffee, tea, chocolate and a year-round supply of seasonable products. South Australian food and wine are sold in local markets, but much is sold in interstate and international markets. If the Australian market demanded more food, much more of the existing production could be sold in Australia.

As I told an estimates committee hearing a few weeks ago, the biggest consumer of agricultural land in South Australia is often subdivision for rural living. These smaller rural living allotments make up an enormous amount of productive land for very little housing output. In the Adelaide Hills, much good rural producing land is consumed for very little housing efficiency, and this is one of the areas we need to address as part of the 30-year plan. I mentioned at estimates the initiative undertaken by the Adelaide Hills Council, which is investigating their own development plan to help protect agricultural land in their council. I am delighted that the Adelaide Hills Council appears to be taking a long-term approach to the issue of protecting productive agricultural land.

I again take this opportunity to compliment them for doing that. Areas outside of the urban growth area identified for Mount Barker need to be looked at to ensure there is better planning in place to protect rural land against subdivision for the smaller allotments. As I announced a couple of weeks ago, we are doing exactly that in conjunction with the Onkaparinga council in relation to the Willunga Basin. It is very important that we do not allow the consumption of agricultural land by smaller rural holdings which, as I said, are really a far greater consumer of good farmland than residential holdings. That is something this government expects to carry out in conjunction with local councils as we continue to progress with implementing the principles and objectives of the 30-year plan.

The Hon. R.L. Brokenshire: Absolute nonsense!

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: If the Hon. Mr Brokenshire thinks that a series of two-hectare to five-hectare farmlets are producing viable food for export and production, then I think he is kidding himself. Most of these are hobby farms, where a person might keep a horse or there might be dog kennels or they might have an alpaca or two. If our food security depended on eating dogs, horses and alpacas, that sort of subdivision might be essential, but if one looks at the total number of hectares that have been divided into that sort of holding, one sees that it is hundreds, if not thousands, of hectares, which is much greater than the sort of area taken up by housing.

So I think it is important in this whole debate that we really understand where the greatest threat to our more productive agricultural land lies. That is not to say that there is no role for this sort of rural living development, but Mount Barker is a classic case of where a lot of that housing along the freeway and across the freeway from Mount Barker has been divided into the size of area that is totally unproductive but provides very little housing. There is a role for it, but we need to be much more careful where we allow that type of subdivision to take place, because subdividing land into areas that are non-productive is likely to do much more to threaten our agricultural production than a much smaller area of land for residential.

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