Allowing Room to Move
Infrastructure Australia has noted that rapidly changing land use and development can place pressure on urban transport networks. The increasing density of people living in our largest cities adds pressure to legacy networks, while greenfield development requires new infrastructure and services. Failure to coordinate land use and transport planning can contribute to congestion and crowding in some areas, or a lack of adequate services in others.
In May 2021 the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments agreed to the National Urban Freight Planning Principles , designed to guide land use decision making across all levels of government to improve planning for freight in Australia’s metropolitan areas.
ALC is generally satisfied with the Principles but they will need to remain current. Each jurisdiction is expected to report on their practical actions to implement the Principles through the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy annual reporting process.
ALC supports all tiers of government to integrate appropriate land use planning protections to preserve freight / industrial land and create buffer zones around key freight hubs and freight corridors to allow wherever possible, 24-hour freight operations. As the Prime Minister has indicated, a productivity driver not recently used is regulatory reform through co-operative federalism. He was also quoted of saying there is a need to drive collaboration in areas including planning laws and environmental regulation.
One of the levers used in the past during the last great period of economic reform conducted under national competition policy was the creation of incentive payments for jurisdictions – given the structure of the Australian federation, this is one of the few constitutionally available levers available to federal government.
Recommendations
1) The National Urban Freight Planning Principles should be updated as part of the review of the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy
2) Embed the National Urban Freight Planning Principles into IA’s assessment process to ensure any infrastructure investment takes into consideration the needs of freight
3) The Australian Government should use incentive payments (so called ‘section 96’ grants) to encourage State and Territory Governments to:
b) Create a distinct category – ‘Freight and Transport Lands’ – in their planning documents
c) Develop appropriate land use instruments that permits the continuous operation of freight down the freight chain
d) Comply with agreed infrastructure investments contained in the National Action Plan as listed in the Annual Report for the National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy.
Challenge 39 Australian Infrastructure Audit 2019: 363 https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-08/Australian%20Infrastructure%20Audit%202019%20-%205b.%20Freight%20Transport.pdf
https://www.freightaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/urban-freight-planning-principles.pdf
https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/media-centre/time-to-advance-afr-conference
https://www.afr.com/business-summit/albanese-spruiks-federation-reform-in-election-pitch-to-business-20220309-p5a2zu
Apart from moral suasion, the constitutional devices available to the Commonwealth are pl 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution (attempt to attract a referral of powers from jurisdictions to the Commonwealth and section 96 (grants on conditions) should it wish to achieve a particular outcome. See also Williams v.Commonwealth [2014] HCA 23 para 96 - http://www7.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/2014/23.html
‘Freight and transport lands’ are zones exclusively dedicated to infrastructure necessary for the movement of freight and are in complete distinction to ‘bulky goods’ zones where the traffic generated by retail businesses entitled to trade in such zones causes disruption to the efficient movement of freight.
The most recent report is for 2020-21 - https://www.freightaustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020-21-annual-report.pdf