Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Urban policy
metropolitan strategic planning rhetoric: productivity, sustainability, liveability and
governance. In 2016, the Liberal–National Coalition government launched the
‘Smart Cities’ plan with the ambition to ‘rethink the way our cities are planned,
built and managed’. 24 The plan, not a substantive policy document, reflects
internationally shared (and poorly defined) ‘common sense’ tenets that productive
cities are smart, innovative, connected and liveable. In the same year, the
government announced the Australian Infrastructure Plan, asserting that ‘the
Australian government should drive change in the planning and operation of
Australia’s cities’. 25 Federal commitments comprise funding for infrastructure
planning and provision and seeking partnerships with state and territory
governments via City Deals, which are ‘bespoke’ place-based funding agreements
presented as boosting urban productivity while enabling the ‘value capture’ of
enhanced tax revenue from development. The deals are described as ‘driv[ing]
national priorities tailored to local needs’. 26
Questions arise about the federal government’s engagement in matters that are
generally regarded as the states’ prerogative – metropolitan strategic planning and
infrastructure investment. The resurgence of national urban policy in Australia
contrasts with the approach in other Western countries, where intergovernmental
decentralisation is leading to the creation of institutions at the metropolitan level,
justifiedonthebasisofenhancingmetropolitan regions’ global competitiveness
while increasing democratic accountability. In the UK, where the City Deals
approach originated, the funding agreements are ‘devolution deals’ premised on the
creation of metropolitan governments that include representatives of constituent
local governments and a directly elected ‘metro mayor’. 27 Australian conceptions
of national urban policy do not envisage representative, revenue-generating metropolitan
governments, perceived as a threat to state and federal power and influence.
Australia’s exceptionalism can be related to its extreme vertical fiscal imbalance.
28 Thisimbalanceisbasedonwhichlevelofgovernmenthasthepowerto
make decisions about public spending and taxation. Australia is atypical, given
the power of the federal level in collecting most taxation revenue before making
transfers to the states and territories in the form of general and tied grants. The
states/territories can levy limited taxes but derive nearly half their revenue from
federal grants. 29 This imbalance enables the federal government to assert power
over planning for and infrastructure investment in cities, when it chooses to do so.
MajorroadprojectssuchastheEastWestLinkinMelbourne,Perth’sRoe8highway
extension and Sydney’s WestConnex have been highly contested but exemplify the
influence of funded federal priorities on state priorities. The projects are insulated
24 Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2016, 4.
25 Infrastructure Australia 2016, 175.
26 Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet 2016, 5.
27 Sandford 2018.
28 OECD 2016.
29 Galligan 2014.
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