How many times have we all heard someone say “there has been nothing built in this country since the Snowy River Scheme?” Enough I guess that for a dollar each time we might have enough dollars by now to build another scheme or two.
It’s a fair question, but one which brings to mind yet more questions than answers. Can public funding alone support all the big capital works projects we seem to believe we need? No. Have we changed our way of life since the days of the Snowy Scheme? Not much. Are we determined to ignore and yet repeat the mistakes of large cities overseas? Pretty much.
It’s just plain sad that in such a bright country, demands on the public purse are for ideas and plans which are far too often just reactive in nature.
For example we are just keeping pace with traffic volumes in our clogged CBD’s.
We are often just spreading another suburb across another fertile paddock.
While the car and the home are the great Australian dream, we have to start asking; at what cost to the rest of the country does the same old model come, when does it stop, and how do we change gears.
I long to hear our big urban city councils say one day, “enough is enough; we are just going to go for a better way of life and forget about big”. Examples from London and elsewhere show us there are better ways to react to urban growth.
Why, despite the best efforts of many, do our big cities have to require more public funding to feed old models of transportation for example. It’s no wonder our leaders and treasurers look a little stressed from time to time.
Spare a thought for government however, as the real dilemma confronting each one for the last decade or so is that you don’t have to live in a CBD to have very high and instant expectations in terms of infrastructure and communications.
Add to that, Regional Australia has now been awakened by new visions for the north, and the hunger for projects mounting up.
The real problem now for government is how do you keep feeding one, while the other one is waking up and wants a feed as well. You could try weaning one, but which one? It’s a minefield.
So, we have to do it differently.
Despite claims of it being “too difficult”, tax reform must play a role. Other countries have special economic zones, or zones for special investment that seem to work.
I can’t believe it’s beyond the thinking of our brightest minds at least to do the same in a country of only 24 million.
It’s tax legislation, just rewrite it. Move the zones around if you want to, in order to stimulate parts of the country, and then move on. How hard can it be?
If we keep having the same tired and repetitive old argument around shared public funding that we have been having since the Snowy River Scheme, then we won’t see anything much done before we are all in the grave.
The strategic value of public funding now is to leverage more private investment in order to make it go further, and tax reform.
The nation needs a fresh look at how it supports the growth of a bright future. Government can no longer do it on their own; there is just not enough money. Enabling has to be the formula of the future.
- Paul Woodhouse is the Regional Development Australia Townsville and North West Queensland chair and the chairman of the North West Health and Hospital Service
