AUSTRALIA
City Limits
Tuesday, 26 February, 2008
Are Australia's cities prepared for drastic changes due to climate change?
WATCH A VIDEO
Our cities developed on the promise of cheap oil when climate change was not on the radar. Now, the suburban dream is turning out to be an environmental nightmare. So how will we turn this around?
Your Say: How can our cities become more sustainable?
In pictures: Behind the scenes.
Video: How to make a city more sustainable
Will our freeways be turned into cycle ways? Or will our councils follow London's lead and impose a $56 dollar daily tax for those driving into the city? The one thing we do know is that any major change will require unprecedented political willpower.
Insight returns for 2008 with a focus on our cities; where most people live. We'll be joined by politicians, sustainability planners and members of the public.
TRANSCRIPT
Australia was given a blunt warning last week, cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically or risk becoming the most badly damaged country in the developed world. The warning came from Professor Ross Garnaut, who has been commissioned by Federal, State and Territory governments to help develop major policies on climate change. Three-quarters of our greenhouse gas emissions come from our cities. Getting those emissions down will require some big changes. So how will we do it? And how will it eventually affect the way we live and work in our cities?
JENNY BROCKIE: Tonight, the new Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, joins planners, industry reps and members of the public to talk about how we will all have to change. Welcome, everybody. It's good to have you all here to start off our year. I'd like to kick off with you, Peter Newman, in New Orleans. You're the only person who's really done extensive research into the sustainability of Australian cities. How do they shape up and how much change is going to be needed?
PETER NEWMAN, CURTIN UNIVERSITY: Well, American cities are the worst, but we are not far behind. European cities use half the fuel that we do, and we are quite vulnerable. As climate change governance requires reductions in fossil fuels, at the same time we have a peak oil problem that's going to mean supplies are dwindling anyway. So some cities are not going to cope and parts of cities are already suffering. The reality is on the edges of some American cities and in Australia families are finding it very hard to pay for US$100 a barrel oil, and that's going to get worse. So it means that some suburbs are being abandoned. This is only the start of the way in which our cities are going to have to change, because it's not acceptable that we allow this to happen. Our suburbs need to change, they need better transit systems they need all kinds of help. And we've had a decade, really, with no interest from the Federal Government and minor concern from State Governments on the reality of this major global issue that's now in front of us.
JENNY BROCKIE: So for ordinary people, Peter, for ordinary Australians, average Australians watching this, are their lives going to be substantially different in 10 years to what they are like now in terms of the way they live their lives?
PETER NEWMAN: Yes, there will be far less car use, there's no doubt about that, and we'll live in buildings that don't leak and don't use as much fuel. There is no doubt that's the track we have to head down. We can do that in a way where we get on top of it.
JENNY BROCKIE: We'll get on to how to do it a little later on. Peter Garrett, I'd like to come to you first, though, and ask you whether you agree with Peter Newman's assessment that there's a need for drastic change, for urgent change?
PETER GARRETT, MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT: I don't think that there's any doubt that Peter's on the money when he talks about the need for urgent change, Jenny, and he's also on the money when he talks about the fact it is an issue that hasn't been taken seriously at the federal level for 10 or 11 years. And one thing about the Rudd Labor Government is we do take climate change seriously. They're momentous issues. They not only go across the transport sector, the things we'll be discussing tonight on your program, but they affect farmlands, they affect our coasts, they affect our way of life. So yes, it is a serious issue, yes, we really need to devote some attention to energy efficiency and much better use of our resources in the city, yes we need to bring down greenhouse gas emissions as a matter of priority.
JENNY BROCKIE: Christine Milne, does that hearten you as a Green?
SENATOR CHRISTINE MILNE, AUSTRALIAN GREENS: It does hearten me, but I have to say there's no evidence yet that the Rudd Government understands what a whole-of-government approach means to reducing emissions, particularly in cities. There's no acceptance yet from the Rudd Government of the notion of peak oil. There's no review, for example, of the AusLink funding to prefer freeways over light and heavy rail and public transport. We don't have any real targets on energy efficiency. So there are lots of public awareness-raising programs, but nothing in terms of the systemic, whole-of-government change, redirecting subsidies away from fossil fuels to the clean energy sector. All of those things have to happen soon.
JENNY BROCKIE: We will get back to that in a moment. I'll give you a chance to answer that in a moment too. But Peter Newman, just on the question of cars, you raised the question of cars. How much are cars and transport contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions in Australian cities, and can we afford to keep using cars the way we are now?
PETER NEWMAN: No, there's no question. They're about 30% of the greenhouse problem, but the issue is that for ordinary householders the price of fuel is going to go up, and as a proportion of our household budgets we're not quite ready for that. What are we going to use less of? And that's something every household has to face. The best way is that people get out of their cars, use them less, but that means we need other options. We need to have lots of cycle trails and the ability to walk to local things. But most of all, we need to be able to have a public transport system that gets us across the city faster than the traffic. If we don't have that, it's very, very hard to get out of our cars.
JENNY BROCKIE: I'd like to ask some of people here about getting out of their cars. How do you feel, Sam, about getting out of your car?
SAM: Well I think from where I live at Coogee, getting to North Sydney to work, and that is just a simple example is almost impossible to do it under an hour in the morning.
JENNY BROCKIE: And both those places are quite close to the centre of the city, aren't they, in Sydney?
SAM: Quite close. It could take up to 1.5 hours if I took public transport. You tend to take the car, which is half an hour, which is a big difference
.
JENNY BROCKIE: So you will stay in your car as long as it takes you an hour to get there by public transport?
SAM: I'm afraid so, yes.
JENNY BROCKIE: Youlanta what about you, you use your car too, why not public transport?
YOULANTA: From the place where I live to the place I work, it would be virtually impossible.
JENNY BROCKIE: Why?
YOULANTA: I'd have to take two buses and a train, so it's about two hours travel each way. So there wouldn't be enough time in the day for me to catch the public transport.
JENNY BROCKIE: Samantha, you're a university student on Sydney's Northern Beaches. You've just worked all over the summer to buy a car, is that right?
SAMANTHA McCARTNEY: Yes, to buy a car.
JENNY BROCKIE: Why?
SAMANTHA McCARTNEY: Because I live at Balgowlah Heights, and it's impossible to get to university on public transport. There's no bus system at Balgowlah Heights, it is just physically impossible.
JENNY BROCKIE: Have you thought about how much that car's going to cost you in the light of what Peter's saying?
SAMANTHA McCARTNEY: I have, and I'm not sure how I'll do it. I really need a better bus system where I live.
JENNY BROCKIE: So you will be driving every day backwards and forwards, how many kilometres, do you know?
SAMANTHA McCARTNEY: Balgowlah Heights to the city, well, it's 20 minutes by car, I guess. I'm not sure how far that is.
JENNY BROCKIE: You'll be using your car quite significantly every day, because you haven't got any public transport?
SAMANTHA McCARTNEY: Yep, definitely.
JENNY BROCKIE: One city in Australia, Perth, has tried to address some of these problems with a new train, costing $1.1 billion. It runs 73km from the south to Perth's CBD. So are commuters using it? Here's Lisa Main.
FAST TRAIN STORY:
REPORTER: Lisa Maine
It's 7:30am around the country, most of the major roads are jammed. Nowhere else in the world are individuals responsible for emitting more CO2 than right here in Australia, and that's largely because we drive our cars to work. In an effort to get commuters out of their cars, Perth has just invested $1.1 billion on a new fast train. The only question now is will they use it? Tully is a proud 4-wheel drive owner and his long-time friend Simone a university student. Both live in Mandurah, 73km south of Perth's CBD.
TULLY COLLINS: Last one to Perth buys breakfast.
And today we're going to race the car against the train.
SIMONE MCKENNA: It's fast, it's faster way I thought it would go.
TULLY COLLINS: I would never even consider not having a car. I don't even like going on holidays for two weeks and not having my car.
SIMONE MCKENNA: We did date, yes, in high school, like in Year 9.
TULLY COLLINS: Yeah, I think we dated five times on and off. Lucky girl.
SIMONE MCKENNA: Tully "When you get asked the questions don't make me look like a dick." Between Tully and I, I think I think more about the future, whereas Tully thinks more day to day.
TULLY COLLINS: I don't think about the future as much as I probably should. I definitely don't think about the environmental side of things.
SIMONE MCKENNA: I don't think I know enough about climate change yet. Obviously it's a bad thing and I don't like it, but I don't know enough about it yet to say that I'm doing enough or I'm not doing enough or making the right changes.
Perth planners knew it was going to take more than just the threat of climate change to get commuters out of their air conditioned cars and onto the train. They made sure the train was faster and cheaper.
TULLY COLLINS: On Thursday was when I last filled up my car, it cost me $85 and then today, Monday, I had to put fuel in again today.
SIMONE MCKENNA: I'd say Tully would be in amongst all of the traffic out there.
TULLY COLLINS: Oh, traffic.
SIMONE MCKENNA: Probably a little bit of road rage, knowing Tully.
TULLY COLLINS: I can't really deal with having this truck in front of me right now, actually. What the hell? Trains everywhere.
SIMONE MCKENNA: We've just gone straight past Tully, he's stuck back there.
I catch the train mainly for comfort because I don't want to be driving for hours on end.
TULLY COLLINS: Went to the Big Day Out last week, caught the first train there from Mandurah, and after a long day at the Big Day Out there was no toilets on the train. It wasn't really a good thing.
SIMONE MCKENNA: I think it would take a fair bit for Tully to get out of his car and into a train, because I think maybe if it made him more aware of what his car is doing to the environment.
TULLY COLLINS: For me to give up my car, a train that has a kebab shop and a toilet. Definitely needs a toilet.
SIMONE MCKENNA: Still confident that I'm going to win. We're just up a little bit further.
TULLY COLLINS: An hour and three minutes, we're definitely going to struggle to beat Simone. Found a spot, now it's time to go downstairs.
SIMONE MCKENNA: Yes. Yes. Train wins. Yes. I'll give him a call, see where he is.
JENNY BROCKIE: Well, here you are. The train beat you, Tully, on both counts, money and time. What's it going to take to get you to give up your car?
TULLY COLLINS: Since then I've actually caught the train three times, a huge fan of it but I just struggle with things, like when I have to get off the train and get on a bus and then go to another place. Like I play sport in Perth, so I go to get on one, and then I might not finish until 8 o'clock. For occasions like that, when I can pre plan it and make sure that I know where I'm going, I will get on the train an again.
JENNY BROCKIE: So you've shifted a bit?
TULLY COLLINS: A little bit but not much.
JENNY BROCKIE: And what about buying a smaller car than the 4-wheel drive?
TULLY COLLINS: I love my 4-wheel drive at the moment.
JENNY BROCKIE: I find this really interesting. I think this is going to be a big part of the problem with this argument, is to try to convince people to shift. Simone, you love the train but you still use your car every day. Why is that?
SIMONE MCKENNA: Just to get around locally in Mandurah, it's so much quicker than to walk down and get the bus and stop at every stop along the way.
JENNY BROCKIE: Do you have to use your car to get to the train?
SIMONE MCKENNA: Yeah, I actually park at the train station.
JENNY BROCKIE: Alannah MacTiernan, you’re the WA Planning and Infrastructure Minister, now you lobbied very hard for Perth's train against some fierce opposition I might add, in the media, especially and from the roads lobby, and you had a mining boom to help fund this train. Yet still there are issues for people like Simone and still there's resistance from people like Tully. How do you deal with that?
ALANNAH MACTIERNAN, MINISTER FOR PLANNING, WA: I think the overwhelming view of the people of Western Australia is that this is a really good project. I mean, we've been overwhelmed by the really positive response, because people actually get it. They actually do understand that we've got to provide public transport alternatives for them if we're going to make our city liveable, and deal, of course, with climate change. So we're very pleased with the response already, within the trains being up and running now about eight weeks. And we've got up to 36,000 people a day on it. We're averaging during the week days now about 32,000 a day. I mean, I think that is a tremendous achievement within eight weeks.
JENNY BROCKIE: Why isn't it happening with other State governments then, do you think? Is it because you had the mining boom to fund it or isn't the will there?
ALANNAH MACTIERNAN: No, we made the decision and we made the commitment to this project before the mining boom took place. I think in Perth we have had really, for the last 20 years, a heightened awareness of the need to really invest in public transport. And it probably started back in 1979 when an earlier government closed down the Perth-to-Fremantle rail line and were going to rip it up and make a nice freeway down there for cars. And I think that really radicalised a generation of politically active people in Perth, and since that time we have had a very, I'd guess, a heightened awareness of the need to invest in public transport, and an understanding of the interrelationship between the way in which we design our cities, the way we shape our cities, and the ease with which we can provide public transport.
JENNY BROCKIE: Just very quickly, do you know what the carbon savings are of that train? Has someone done the figures on what you're saving in terms of carbon emissions?
ALANNAH MACTIERNAN: Well, we have done some estimates, and if we're just looking at the trips on that line alone, we've calculated around 25,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year will be saved. But one of the really interesting things that has happened with this rail system is that the increase in public transport use hasn't just occurred on that corridor. For example, over January, we had a 13% increase across the whole system.
JENNY BROCKIE: So there's flow-on effects from it?
ALANNAH MACTIERNAN: That's right, because as you establish a network, as the network improves, then the whole attractiveness of the system is enhanced. Because even if you're living in the northern suburbs or the eastern suburbs, suddenly you're part of a much bigger network and that becomes a much more attractive option.
JENNY BROCKIE: Paul Mees, you've done a city-by-city analysis of transport in Australia. How do you rate what Perth is doing, because it is exceptional, in a sense, in Australia at the moment, isn't it?
PAUL MEES, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: I think it's very interesting, particularly from those of us from the east coast who think of ourselves as more sophisticated and enlightened, that Perth would be leading the charge here. I don't think it's being harsh on them to say that by European standards Perth's public transport system is nothing to write home about, but the important thing is, by Australian standards, they're kicking a lot of goals and they seem to be the only State Government in Australia that's really seized the transport issue and said, "Enough of business as usual, we need to make a really dramatic change if we're going to give people an incentive to get out of their cars."
JENNY BROCKIE: Michael Roth, you're from an insurance and motoring lobby group in Queensland. Do you accept that our love affair with the car is damaging the environment, seriously damaging the environment?
MICHAEL ROTH, RACQ: I think cars have a very bad rap, because every time someone talks about emission savings they compare it with the number of cars it might take off the road. But the reality is about 15% of Australia's greenhouse emissions come from the transport sector and only about 8% come from cars. So cars are a small part of the overall greenhouse problem.
JENNY BROCKIE: Paul, a response from you?
PAUL MEES: That is, that is partly true. The way the accounting works, some of the greenhouse emissions from transport are counted in other categories, so petroleum refining produces a lot of emissions and that's calculated as energy generations just because of the bureaucratic rules.
JENNY BROCKIE: But why are we hearing all the time for the need to get out of our cars?
PAUL MEES: Transport as a whole produces about half as much of Australia's greenhouse emissions as electricity generation, so I think it would be entirely reasonable if we heard about half as much about the need to adopt more sustainable transport patterns as we do about the need to fix our power generation emissions.
JENNY BROCKIE: Peter Garrett, the Federal Government spends billions of dollars on roads. Do you have plans to get more of us out of our cars to reduce, to reach those targets that you're saying we have to meet?
PETER GARRETT: Jenny, we certainly think there's a need for more consumer information. For starters, we think there's a need for people to know about the energy efficiency and fuel efficiency of motor vehicles. In fact, my colleague Anthony Albanese launched a sticker that people may have seen just recently showing what fuel consumption and carbon emissions would be in terms of car-labelling.
JENNY BROCKIE: But stickers aren't going to change this.
PETER GARRETT: No, I'm just saying that's one step. The other is that the Federal Government wants to provide the power of positive example. We've proposed an investment of some $500 million in a green car innovation fund, and what we've also said, we've issued a green car challenge to car makers. If you build a green car, whether it's a hybrid model or a model more efficient, then we'll purchase it.
JENNY BROCKIE: What about public transport, though?
PETER GARRETT: Public transport's important. There's no question about that.
JENNY BROCKIE: Is there a role for the Federal Government in a public transport plan?
PETER GARRETT: Well, certainly it's something which we want to look at in terms of figuring out how we can reduce the overall emissions burden that all of us are facing, whatever State we live in through the nation, but it's primarily an issue for States. We've seen a great example from Perth. You've had Peter Newman on. He's been one of the pioneers in delivering public transport solutions in Perth, but historically in our cities we've had actually had much greater levels of car dependency than we will probably have in the future, and we're in that transition period where we need to have integrated public transport systems. We do need to have investment that happens at the State level, and it's something I know that transport ministers are wrestling with.
JENNY BROCKIE: And what I would like to know is the new Federal Government going to spearhead that, the new Federal Government, because the States haven't done a great job on the whole?
PETER GARRETT: We're not about blaming the States for what they have and haven't done. What we are about doing is trying to deliver strong, positive climate change conditions. And one thing about your discussion which is fantastic is we want to have this discussion as well. I'm not going to spend all my time bagging Mr Howard and his Government but it is the case that they vacated the field for nearly 12 years now, and what we want to do at the 2020 summit, for example, is address some of these issues. JENNY BROCKIE: Rob Adams, you've been Melbourne's city designer for around 20 years. Now nearly three quarters of the people in your city drive to work, it has got one of the worst records of increase in the number of cars in Australia. What impact is that having on your city and how sustainable is it in terms of the city's future?
ROB ADAMS, URBAN DESIGNER: It has an enormous impact on the city, the impacts we've been talking about in terms of energy consumption and the greenhouse gases. But it's actually reaching its limits. It's not a sustainable form of transport and by that we will still have the car in 20 years time, but it will be different. But it's the balance between the car, public transport, bicycle and walking that is really the thing that the cities need to address, and I think Melbourne is actually quite interesting. The use of bicycles, for instance, has gone up from like 2% four years ago to about 8% of the people coming to the central city on bikes. A major change.
JENNY BROCKIE: You've been looking for new ideas, let's see who you've been talking to.
ENRIQUE’S STORY:
ROB ADAMS: So, Enrique, if you were made mayor of this city for a day, what would you do?
ENRIQUE PENALOSA: The first thing is to continue all wonderful things you have done, Rob. But if we could be very radical I would not make any more freeways. Any society, like in Australian society and any society, citizens have many rights. They have a right to education, a right to housing, a right to work, a right to good health, but as far as I know, no city or no country in the world has a constitution that citizens have a right to park.
In just three years as mayor of Bogota, Enrique Penalosa laid 300km of new bikeways, created the world's longest pedestrian street, reduced peak-hour traffic by 40% and instituted the city's first car-free day.
ENRIQUE PENALOSA: The parking in the city works fine the day when we have no cars. 99% of the people go to work, to study, everything as usual. Most people have much shorter travel times because there is less traffic.
Interestingly, Enrique made all of these changes not because of the environment, but rather to improve the quality of life for Bogota's poor.
ENRIQUE PENALOSA: In Bogota we decided that first of all we had to make our city more for people. If we make good sidewalks, we are showing respect for human dignity. A good, well-protected bicycle path is a symbol that shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important to one in a $30,000 car. The most successful cities, like Paris or London, many, many years ago they decided they would not make any more space for cars. If there were more space for cars in those cities there would be more cars, if there was less space there would be less cars. Therefore how many cars there should be in a city or how much space for cars is not an engineering decision, it's a political decision.
JENNY BROCKIE: Rob Adams, will you be pushing for any of those sort of changes in Melbourne?
ROB ADAMS: I think we will be, and I think it's moving in that direction. I think there's the realisation that we have to go to other forms. We've already got a debate with the State Government about bicycle lanes down our boulevards and other areas, and that bicycle network is improving. We are spending money on public transport, not enough, and it's not local government's business to actually do the public transport system, but yes, I think you will see those improvements coming.
JENNY BROCKIE: Why do you think so many people are driving into the city of Melbourne to get to work?
ROB ADAMS: I think you've got the problem with our cities is basically we've got into a false utopia out of the garden city movement where we actually created suburbia. And suburbia works if you don't have to travel 25km to get out of suburbia to get to where you have to do your business. The challenge for our cities is to go from this very spread city to a much denser city and the exciting thing about that is all the things you have to do to in fact make cities more sustainable, density, mixed use, better connectivity, better public realm are exactly the same things you need to do to make cities more liveable.
JENNY BROCKIE: We'll get on to that in a sec, but Michael, before we do, how would you feel as a lobbyist for the motoring sector if those sort of changes come into our cities, making it harder for cars to use our cities?
MICHAEL ROTH: The reality is the State Government's already spending more money on public transport than on roads in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, and I think Simone's example shows a lot, in that even though she's keen on using the train, she has a car and she does many of her trips by car. Cars are 75% of the trips, roughly, in our cities, so if cars aren't part of the solution, then we're always going to be pushing up hill.
JENNY BROCKIE: So you're going to continue to lobby hard for roads and freeways and those sorts of things, while the other argument is going on about public transport?
MICHAEL ROTH: If we push negatively towards cars then we're going to congest the system even further. Now, obviously, most people don't want that, because most people choose to drive and congestion increases emissions. So if we look at trying to congest the system, we're actually going to increase the greenhouse emissions from our cities. What we need to do is look at improving all the options so more people have choices and are encouraged to use the most suitable mode for the trip they need to do.
JENNY BROCKIE: Peter Garrett, interesting lobby groups at odds here, who's going to win out on this?
PETER GARRETT: I don’t think it's a case of someone winning, Jenny. I think it's a case of recognising that we now operate in an environment where we must reduce our emissions, where we do have issues to do with congestion in cities, and car use clearly is going to be one of those critical things that planners have to work on. It's also about integrating the approach. The fact of the matter is that many Australians will still want the flexibility and the opportunity to use a car, and sometimes they'll have to for a variety of reasons. Now, we need to make sure in the short term that they are well-informed about making those sorts of choices and in the longer term that there are integrated transport mechanisms in place that enable them to use public transport when appropriate and sometimes use a car as well.
ROB ADAMS: And surely, Jenny, also the right cost for this. You can read in the paper today that the excise and fringe benefit, tax benefit, going to the motor car and motor industry are $4 billion a year. So put it on the same costing basis. Let them pay for what it actually costs. That $4 billion going into other forms of transport will be very useful or into sustainable energy.
MICHAEL ROTH: Jenny, car users also fork out $14 billion per year in the fuel excise. We're a bit of a cash cow as well. It's not just the subsidy.
JENNY BROCKIE: Let's move on to question of density, because Rob raised the question of density. I know you've moved a lot of people into the CBD in Melbourne, Rob, and you're very proud of that, but Peter Newman, I want to ask you just what you do with the situation for most people. Not everybody can live in the CBD and not use their car and be near where they work, can they? What about everybody else? How do you organise the society differently so that you haven't got some of these problems?
PETER NEWMAN: Well the planning solution is that what Rob did in the city of Melbourne you need to do in a series of subcities, smaller cities right through the suburbs. We need dense options around train stations right across the city, and that means that people living in the suburbs in their ordinary blocks, where they are very car-dependent most of the time, will then have a small trip to a subcentre where there will be jobs, there will be services where they can do shopping and so on. That's the local centre, if you like, that's revamped and made much more effective and viable, but then they need to be linked together by good public transport. That's the vision that we have and we're just not doing that quickly enough. So 10 years or so ago we had the Better Cities Program that funded those kind of options. We have a really good one in Subiaco. It's a very popular place to live and work now. That was a Better Cities Program funded by the Federal Government as a demonstration. We need a hundred of them being built right across our Australian cities as demonstration, sustainable cities.
JENNY BROCKIE: Bernard Salt, you're a demographer, how do you think people want to live? When you hear the word 'density', what do you think?
BERNARD SALT, DEMOGRAPHER, KPMG: There's no doubt Australians are moving back into the city centre. My figures show over the year ending June 2006, 7,000 Australians moved into the centre of Melbourne, the city of Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra. 7,000 Australians also moved into the central part of Sydney, and 7,000 Australians also moved into the central part of Brisbane in a single 12-month period. So there is a push into that inner-city lifestyle and it appeals to singles and couples and corporate types and whatever.
The issue is that for every single person moving back downtown into the centre of a metropolitan area in Australia, there are five people moving out to the edge of metropolitan Australia. Places like Casey and Wyndham on the edge of Melbourne, places like Liverpool and Penrith and Blacktown on the edge of Sydney, these places are adding anywhere between 30,000 and 40,000 people per year collectively. So we've got 7,000 moving back downtown, say 35,000 moving to the edge of Australian suburbia. Australians are voting with their feet.
There is 100 years of suburban culture built around suburbia, built around the motor car. That's why people have this love affair with their motor car, because it's a culture built up over 100 years. We have to change hearts and minds in order to achieve what we actually want, which is denser cities.
JENNY BROCKIE: Tim Redway, your company built 2,500 new homes last year. Where do you think people want to live, and what sells?
TIM REDWAY, AV JENNINGS: It's still suburbia, it's still the great Australian dream. AV Jennings has done a lot of research into this area and we've found even in the last 30 years the amount of personal space that the average person has in their home has actually tripled. If we looked back into the 1970s, the average family home was about 135 square metres. Today it's 250 square metres.
JENNY BROCKIE: And that's all energy guzzling. All that extra space has extra lights at the very time that we're trying to lower..
TIM REDWAY: And concurrently Jenny, back in, say, the early 1900s we had 4.5 people per house too. We only have 2.5 people per house. So there's a real mismatch with what's going on there, and while suburban housing is relatively affordable for people, people will still demand that and certainly move out there.
JENNY BROCKIE: I'd like to talk to a few of the people here. Jennifer O'Brien, you've just bought a house 35km from the city, why?
JENNIFER O'BRIEN: We originally wanted to move closer, but my husband and I found it was just unaffordable. The places that we were looking at, they all needed fixed up. We didn't want to do renovations so a lot of them were like little dog kennels. So what we decided was sacrifice a bit, move a bit further out to get the land and to get the newer homes.
JENNY BROCKIE: How big is your house?
DAMIEN ROSSETTO: It's a 40 square home, that's a 750 square block.
JENNY BROCKIE: How many bedrooms?
DAMIEN ROSSETTO: Four.
JENNY BROCKIE: And how many live in it?
DAMIEN ROSSETTO: Two of us.
JENNY BROCKIE: Two of you, why so big? Because you're planning a family?
DAMIEN ROSSETTO: I believe people these days have to plan ahead, because this is what I feel like your saying they are moving into the city centres but I've friends and I'm sure Jennifer does as well, that went to the city, therefore they didn't have to pay tolls to get into the city, like I'm paying $13 a day.
JENNY BROCKIE: You drive from your house to the city to work. How many kilometres is that?
DAMIEN ROSSETTO: It works out 48km.
JENNY BROCKIE: 48km a day.
DAMIEN ROSSETTO: We're actually 48km out from the city centre, so that's each way.
TIM REDWAY: It's the cultural issue, dependency on motor cars. Australians feel they have a cultural right to use their motor vehicle. Australians are inbred with this idea that we have the right to a nice detached home with a block of land and our own personal space.
JENNY BROCKIE: But you're feeding that need as a company providing those homes, aren't you?
TIM REDWAY: That's why we would say we would welcome legislation and proper debate enforcing extra measures to make a level playing field for private industry to actually afford to deliver sustainable housing.
JENNY BROCKIE: So you would like to be regulated over sustainable housing?
TIM REDWAY: Absolutely. Property development and home building is a free-market business, and when it comes to the edge of Australia, affordability is a very key issue. When we survey our customers and we say, "Is sustainable housing and all of those things of interest to you?" Yes, it is for the majority of them. Will they pay for it if they have a chance to choose a big-screen TV? They won't, so we have to mandate it.
JENNY BROCKIE: OK, Peter Garrett, AV Jennings wants you to regulate. Why not regulate the housing industry, create a level playing field? Everything has to be sustainable. UK's doing it, Europe's doing it.
PETER GARRETT: We're already entering into discussions with the industry and State Governments about good energy efficiency and general climate friendly regulations in terms of housing, both the residential sector and the commercial sector. And there's absolutely no doubt that there's a market demand for it, the industry's ready for it and that if we have homogenised standards across the country we can actually, in a sense, lift the benchmark on what our minimum standards are. That's the minimum use of water, that's the minimum sort of energy efficiency with lighting, and we can increase the capacity for these buildings.
JENNY BROCKIE: So you're going to create those standards.
PETER GARRETT: We'll certainly work with State Government and industry to do it, yes.
JENNY BROCKIE: Would you create national standards? Would you be prepared to do that, like countries in Europe have? The UK's about to announce a major change in terms of zero carbon buildings, not only housing but also non-housing buildings, other buildings.
PETER GARRETT: We think working with the States cooperatively is the best way to approach this issue, and I think that, at the moment, we already have significant movement by State Governments who recognise that energy efficiency and climate friendly housing, whether we're living in the suburbs or the city, whether we're in big buildings or small, is an absolute necessity. It's what people want.
JENNY BROCKIE: Christine.
CHRISTINE MILNE: We don't have time for stickers and summits and talk fests. All around the world people recognise we have to get our emissions down, we have to do it. 2015 has to be global peaking and then coming down. We've been talking about this for 20 or 30 years. Industry's saying, "Regulate us. Tell us what appliances can or can't be sold in Australia. Tell us what the standard is, every house has to have a certain level of insulation. Tell us about whether you're going to have solar hot waters. Regulate and we will do it."
The problem is there is a resistance. Now, Labor does not have a policy of requiring large energy users to implement the energy efficiency audits. They have to do the audit, but there's no requirement to actually implement the audit. At the level of housing there is a policy, yes, for a solar panel on schools, great photo opportunity, there are 225,000 solar hot water heaters, hot water systems to be rolled out, but that is hardly anything in the scheme of things. These are public, these are greenwash, essentially public awareness raising. We need systemic change. We need regulation right now.
JENNY BROCKIE: Peter Newman, what do you think? What's the future for the people in the outer suburbs if things don't change, and what do you think is needed?
PETER NEWMAN: Well, in Perth, we've in fact gone backwards. NSW has got a far more regulated system on housing. Ours is a real cop-out. We are still building Tuscan-style black-roof McMansions with no eves, bristling with air conditioning. They are totally unsustainable, and we really do need a federal mandate that clearly says that this is not acceptable any longer. And developers will do the right thing. They just need some real leadership in this area and we're not getting it at the moment.
JENNY BROCKIE: And what if it doesn't happen? What if there isn't, what if there aren't those mandated standards? What happens then?
PETER NEWMAN: Well, then we will fail to achieve our goals that we have now committed ourselves to, and that will not be acceptable, and there will be all kinds of political problems with that. The reality is the public wants this leadership as well. They don't want to be the pariahs of the world when it comes to greenhouse and peak oil. We want to be able to make our contribution. We are doing some good things, but it's not enough. We need now to accelerate. We've let the ball go in the last decade. Now we've got to get on top of it and get out there in front, and this is the way the new economy is going to be driven anyway. This is where the new jobs are. They're talking over here about green-collar jobs based around this new kind of economy. That's where we should be, leading. JENNY BROCKIE: Tonight we're talking about the future of our cities and how we'll all have to change the way we live to deal with climate change. What about the way we use energy and design our buildings? Rob Adams, we talked before a little bit about Melbourne, and you are Melbourne's city designer. What about the way that we use energy and design buildings now? How much do you think that needs to change, not just houses and where we live in the suburb, but buildings in general?
ROB ADAMS: I'll give you an example. We did a study to see what it would take to take the centre of Melbourne to zero emissions by 2020 and 30% of the greenhouse gases came out of major commercial buildings and industry. So if you can actually halve that you make a huge dent on the greenhouse emissions. So buildings, I think, are the key to it. I mean we've talked transport tonight, but I think buildings have to adapt, and at the moment the standards are far too low.
JENNY BROCKIE: We have here some pictures of your city council building, which is carbon-neutral. Let's have a look at inside that building. Can you explain how that works?
ROB ADAMS: We're not quite carbon-neutral, I wish we were. But the important thing about this building is that simply by opening the windows on that slide there for four hours of a night in summer, you cool down the ceilings and that saves you 20% of the energy. The air is coming on to the floor in 100% fresh air and it's just been measured by overseas experts to give us productivity and health and wellbeing improvements of 10.9%. That's worth $2.4 million a year to us, with 500 people in that building.
JENNY BROCKIE: Let's have a look outside of the building. Can you explain to us how that works?
ROB ADAMS: You're looking at the west facade with the timber shutters. They open in the morning and close down in the afternoon to keep the heat off the building, and the northern facade has the balcony and the planting to protect the windows from the summer sun, and on the roof you can see the yellow wind turbines that help extract the air of an evening out of the building.
JENNY BROCKIE: And I think we've got another picture of the outside of the building. Can you explain that?
ROB ADAMS: Eastern-facade double skin protects the eastern side of the building from the morning sun, but also with the toilets behind there, allows air to pass the toilet windows and naturally ventilate it. Only 80% of this building is air-conditioned, the other 20% is naturally ventilated and therefore does not take any energy at all.
JENNY BROCKIE: How much does it cost?
ROB ADAMS: It cost $52 million. We've put all our figures on the web and that was a component of about $11 million that actually was used for greenhouse and indoor air-quality issues. Our figures on payback were very conservative. We took 4.9% reduction or improvement in productivity and CPI to electricity and water. That gave us a 10-year payback on those issues. With our new figures it's closer to 5 to 6 years. So this is not a big impost on those buildings, and in fact what you've seen coming out of Melbourne is a spate of buildings that are going to 5 and 6 stars. In fact, Docklands is becoming a green precinct, as everyone rushes to catch up.
JENNY BROCKIE: Maria Atkinson, your company has taken a lead for quite a while in developing sustainable buildings. Why aren't we seeing more new buildings like that in Australia?
MARIA ATKINSON, LEND LEASE: Well, as Rob points out, Australians understand 6 stars, so Rob's building is 6 stars. It's right on up there with world leadership. We're seeing new commercial buildings come out to be 4 and 5, and there are a few trying to catch up and be 6 stars, but we're not seeing enough. Effectively, Jenny, that is just a few of the enlightened corporates, as tenants, big tenants of these buildings, wanting green buildings because of the benefits that Rob talks to, which is a better space for their employees, more productive work environment, you get a return on investment. So we're seeing them, we're just not seeing them everywhere we look, which is what we need to do to change.
JENNY BROCKIE: But is it because of cost? Is it because people are put off by them costing too much?
MARIA ATKINSON: It's the split incentives of the industry. Those that develop or own the building aren't unlike Rob's team, the City of Melbourne, aren't the occupants. So the owner occupant, like your home, you get a return on investment. In the industry there is split incentives that developers and owners aren't occupying the buildings and they don't get the long-term return on investment. Therefore it is entirely cost.
JENNY BROCKIE: How do you change that?
MARIA ATKINSON: Well, you do a number of things. Rob pointed to all the wonderful passive design, great energy-efficient solutions. So you regulate. You regulate for those things, and then you create incentives to go 4, 5 and 6, to go better and better. You create the financial incentives for best practice, innovation, and then you can make it affordable for everyone.
JENNY BROCKIE: So we've got your section of business calling for regulation as well, and what about, I wonder, how your company would feel about that as well?
TIM REDWAY: We've been involved in energy-efficient housing measures for about 15 years. 15 years ago if we built an energy home design, a lot of interest of people walking through it, no-one would want to buy it because it cost a little bit more than a standard house. Australia really does have to wake up if it's serious about climate change, and realise that regulation is the only thing that will be key to changing the way we live and making our housing sustainable.
JENNY BROCKIE: We keep getting back to this, Peter Garrett, don't we? Do you accept that's true, that regulation is the only way we're going to get the changes to meet the targets?
PETER GARRETT: I don't think there's any doubt regulation has an important role to play, and there are various levels, the national, state and local level.
JENNY BROCKIE: Isn't that part of the problem?
PETER GARRETT: Our approach is to work in a really constructive way. In fact, I've written to the buildings code board and said, "I want to speak to you about, nationally, how we can actually have climate-friendly regulations." So we've got that under way. I want to respond to something Christine Milne said. We're talking about spending taxpayers' money on some of these issues. There's a Solar Cities program and we've committed an extra $25 million. That enables different precincts. There's one in Blacktown, one in Alice Springs, one in Perth, where people have smart meters in their homes. We get solar panels on the roof so people can reduce their energy load and also produce electricity which is much cleaner and greener. We've got a significant building fund, a green building fund, and I mean, there's millions and millions of dollars in research, in programming, because we've come off a very low base at the national level where the previous government didn't take climate change seriously. As everybody watches this, they know they wouldn't ratify Kyoto. We want to go much further than that and certainly not only the programs that I've just identified to you, but also working cooperatively with business, cooperatively with the States and hearing what's being said on this program, which is fantastic, and responding to it.
JENNY BROCKIE: Maria.
MARIA ATKINSON: I think it responds to that, my concern is Peter absolutely gets it and I sit on the building code board and we look forward to the debate and the dialogue, Peter, but federally the Government doesn't currently have in the Garnaut's review a scope that says, "Look at more efficient buildings." Now, tonight we've talked about more efficient buildings and more efficient vehicles. The McKinsey cost curve, which developed what are the greenhouse strategies, said the least-cost carbon abatement solution for Australia released two weeks ago is more efficient buildings and more efficient vehicles. If we don't have the Federal Government jumping in to regulation around more efficient buildings then we've missed the opportunity, and we'll have a few more solar programs, and we're building them all around the world, but they're not the dramatic step that the UK Government has made on policy, which is zero-emission homes in 2016, and that's the kind of thing we need in Australia.
WOMAN: That's really important.
JENNY BROCKIE: I'd like a response from the Minister.
PETER GARRETT: Just finally, Jenny, COAG has a working group on climate change and water, it has a subgroup that deals with energy efficiency. I don't think there's any doubt at all that group will look at things like the McKinsey cost curve that Maria has just spoken about and those measures which we can drive through the system nationally, which operate at the state level and at a local level as well if necessary. I mean, that is what Kevin Rudd is on about. He's on about climate change and he's on about cooperative federalism, making it work at the state level and making it work at the national level.
JENNY BROCKIE: But a lot of people are saying this is a race against time. COAG and every other body that exists that's going to talk about these things is not going to, it's going to take years for these changes anyway.
PETER GARRETT: I think I understand that very well and what I would say is this. This is a Government that has been in power for 12 weeks. We are getting over 12 years of inaction and inertia on the part of the Liberals before us. We certainly take climate change very, very seriously. These issues that have been addressed and you're talking about today are on our agenda. They're things that we're spending money on. They're things that we want to take action on.
JENNY BROCKIE: Peter Newman, what do you think about this? What do you think the future's looking like?
PETER NEWMAN: Well, I just hope they do get moving on it. I am hopeful that they will, but if they don't, the market solution will be that the wealthy will move into eco-enclaves surrounded
JENNY BROCKIE: What do you mean by that, Peter? What do you mean by 'Mad Max' suburbs?
by 'Mad Max' suburbs.
PETER NEWMAN: Well the eco-enclaves are pretty easy to understand. They are where the wealth we are now going into these buildings that, as Rob Adams said, precincts of greenness and they are great places to live, and healthy and full of walkability. But the 'Mad Max' suburbs are where people are desperately trying to survive because they don't have enough options that are affordable for them. It's a real equity issue, this, as well as being an environmental one. We have to get cities in the suburbs where all of the things that the wealthy are now moving to in these eco-enclaves can be available to everyone.
JENNY BROCKIE: Sue Seymour, you live in a big house on the city's outskirts. Does this conversation worry you at all, when you hear about petrol prices going up and all those sorts of things? Are you worried about the future?
SUE SEYMOUR: Definitely, and it has to be an equity issue, because a lot of people can't afford to spend $30,000 putting solar panels on the house and producing their own power, so it is an equity issue.
JENNY BROCKIE: Youlanta, what about you, is this going to shift your desire to live in the suburbs? If it was made more attractive would you move closer in?
YOULANTA: Yes, perhaps yes, I will in the future. Not so this distance.
JENNY BROCKIE: And what do you think about what you've heard tonight in terms of your future, where you are?
YOULANTA: Well, very enlightening first of all, and it's sort of something which you have to really put a lot of think...
JENNY BROCKIE: About what about Rita, beside you? What do you think, Rita? You live in the outer suburbs too. What do you think about what you've heard tonight?
RITA: I think it sounds good in the long run, but we've got a lot of work to do to get it coming along. And I think for the outer suburbs you need something that's going to be affordable, and especially when you're looking at the public transport, it will be need to be time-efficient as well as affordable for somebody to actually use the public transport.
JENNY BROCKIE: Alannah MacTiernan, you've done the train, but how are you going to manage your growing sprawl? And what about the criticisms of your building standards and the codes around those? Do you think you're doing enough in that area at the moment as a State Government?
ALANNAH MACTIERNAN: Look, I think we all have to do more, but I think it's important to really look at the way we shape our city, and that we don't just focus on this fried-egg approach to planning where you've got, you know, a dense city centre and just a sprawl of suburbs around it. What we're trying to do with our network city plan is develop these pockets of intensity throughout the entire metropolitan area, and make sure that the jobs, the recreational opportunities, educational opportunities, are close by where people are in fact living.
The solution is not just to do all these magic things in the inner suburbs, it really is very much about designing the whole city so you reduce the transport task. And one of your audience there expressed the concern about the cost of transport, and this is a very big issue that's not been addressed. We talk a lot about living about housing affordability, but around 18% of people's income, particularly in the outer metropolitan areas, are being spent on transport costs. So we've got a duty to ensure we've got public transport, cycling, but also it's how we shape the city so that we put the jobs, the entertainment, the education right throughout the city, not just in a few key inner-city areas.
JENNY BROCKIE: We are going to have to leave it there, I'm afraid, everybody. I'd like to thank you all very much for joining Insight tonight. We'll get back to you, Peter Garrett, once all these discussions have been had. It's going to be very interesting to see how this is sorted out at a federal, and a state and a local government level. Thank you to Christine Milne too, and everybody else who joined us tonight.
Source: SBS
