Page 963 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 29 March 2011
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Canberra’s spatial plan, of course, mandates that a significant amount of settlement and new dwellings will be accommodated within close proximity to services and facilities—indeed, within 7½ kilometres of the city centre. This broad policy setting reflects the desirability of having settlement occur in close proximity to existing centres and services, therefore reducing in the longer term the city’s and its citizens’ reliance on the private motor vehicle for access to and from those centres and services. That is an important response.
Of course, a range of academic studies have been undertaken across Australia that have also looked at the issue of peak oil. Indeed, if I recall correctly, Griffith University has undertaken a range of studies using an index known as the VIPER index looking at particular areas of outer suburban parts of our cities and how vulnerable they are to price movements in oil costs because of their reliance on motor vehicles as the primary mode of transport relative to their position on the urban edge of our cities. This is an important consideration for Canberra as well, and it is these types of analyses that the Planning and Land Authority already takes into account in determing the longer term planning strategy for the city and where future urban development should take place.
Finally, in relation to food security, there is no doubt that there are opportunities to enhance food security through greater provision of and support for locally grown produce whether within the territory or the region. The government is supportive of measures to encourage those types of activities. However, it is important that we adopt a view on this matter that recognises that a large amount of goods imported into the city for our consumption, whether it is food or goods, comes from locations far away from our city, such as other parts of Australia or, indeed, overseas. It is not realistic to assume that all of these goods could be manufactured or provided for locally. You only have to look at the electronic goods that we rely upon every day and consider whether it is in any way feasible for these type of goods to be manufactured locally to recognise that there are limitations on the approach that suggests that we should source goods locally to a greater degree. We can source them to a greater degree, but we need to be realistic about the constraints presented in that regard.
The government have close regard to issues such as vulnerabilities on urban settlement patterns and our economic activity as a result of price movements in oil and the potential emergence of peak oil at some point in the short to medium term. It is an issue that we have regard to in our planning policies, it is an issue we have regard to in our greenhouse gas reduction strategy policies, and that will remain the case. I thank Ms Le Couteur for bringing this matter to the attention of the Assembly today.
MR COE (Ginninderra) (3.31): It is an interesting matter of public importance that we have today and not one that I would necessarily put at the top of my list of items that get raised with me when I am conducting a street stall in Kippax Jamison, Kaleen, Charnwood or Belconnen Mall. In fact, I do not think it has ever been raised with me at a street stall in Belconnen. Very rarely am I there, giving out my flyers and hearing the concerns of the good constituents of Belconnen, Nicholls and Hall, and someone comes up to me and says, “Alistair, what are you doing about peak oil? And what is the ACT’s response to peak oil?” I do not think that has ever happened.
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