Page 4948 - Week 15 - Thursday, 15 December 2005
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is our very serious dependence on declining petroleum sources. Petroleum is currently essential for agriculture and most facets of Australia’s community life and economic systems, as well as for transport. Many people assume, wrongly, that medium and short-term supplies are assured. There is mounting—and in my view clear—evidence from the oil industry itself that this complacency about future oil supplies is misplaced. Almost 80 per cent of Australia’s petroleum use is in transport, 55 per cent of road transport fuel is petrol, 39 per cent diesel and six per cent LPG. Australia uses about 45,000 megalitres of petroleum every year.
This decline of petroleum sources poses a particular challenge for Canberra. As other members have noted, much of metropolitan Canberra was designed in the 1960s and 1970s around a car-based transport and land use system, with the expectation of a future public transport system. Currently cars provide the bulk of Canberra residents’ accessibility needs—83 per cent of work trips—with relatively low use of public transport, walking and cycling for work trips—seven per cent, four per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively—based on the most recent census.
Compared with the Australian average for getting to and from work, Canberrans use their cars more, cycle more, walk about the same and use public transport less. The city has a high quality road system, substantial parking availability and high levels of car ownership, but declining oil supply, issues of greenhouse gas emissions, growing congestion and other negative externalities are some of the key issues for our car-based city. In response to the Canberra spatial plan, we have aimed to create a sustainable pattern of urban settlement in the ACT and the region. A well planned city reduces the ecological footprint of urban settlement, reduces the impact of human activities on our climate and, at the same time, allows the city to adapt to altered climates.
The spatial plan recognises that the per capita ecological footprint of the city needs to be reduced and has indicated this through limits of new growth within the territory to be within 15 kilometres of the centre of the city. This reflects our aspiration to restrain urban expansion while still allowing for economic development, amenity and the lifestyle benefits our city provides. Furthermore, the spatial plan encourages residential intensification within 7.5 kilometres of the city centre. This will ensure that a large proportion of the predicted urban growth is located close to major employment, services and facilities. It will consequently reduce the distance travelled and therefore the fuel consumed and the greenhouses emitted.
Through the sustainable transport plan, which was also released in 2004, the government has demonstrated that Canberra and Canberrans would benefit from a transport system that has a greater role for walking, cycling and public transport and the more efficient use of our existing infrastructure. The plan seeks to maintain the high levels of accessibility that Canberrans enjoy by achieving a shift towards more use of walking, cycling and public transport. It sets out to increase the use of sustainable transport modes—that is, walking, cycling and public transport—from 13 per cent of work trips in 2001 to 20 per cent in 2011 and 30 per cent in 2026. That is more than doubling the market share of environmentally friendly transport modes. As a comprehensive framework for a sustainable transport system, the plan contains strategies related to the following:
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