Today’s report by Per Capita highlights the challenges faced by people in our metropolitan cities and the urgent need for a national urban policy.
The report, Paradise Lost? The race to maintain Australian living standards, finds that Australians are commuting an extra 56 unpaid hours per year compared to 2002. The report concludes that:
‘To continue to lift labour productivity, we must lift our investment in hard infrastructure like transport and broadband, as well as soft infrastructure like skills and education.’
To maintain liveability and to unlock our metropolitan cities’ productive potential, our cities need coordination and investment at a national level in urban rail, roads and fibre to the premises broadband.
Australia needs a Government that’s prepared to take responsibility for where four out of five people live and 80 per cent of our national GDP is generated.
To this effect, Labor has released a ten-point action plan for better, more prosperous cities aimed at lifting productivity, sustainability and liveability of urban Australia.
Only Labor is committed to a national urban policy that supports our metropolitan cities and the people who live in them.