John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the past four years, my office has been working on an infrastructure funding concept as an alternative to the current grants and loans systems without incurring a large government debt. Known as value capture, this concept has been used to great effect in a variety of forms in many different countries, including the United States, Britain, Japan, Hong Kong and Brazil.

We have all witnessed the huge growth in our two biggest cities over recent decades providing similar increases in the cost of living, yet without commensurate infrastructure to efficiently and effectively service that growth. Value capture can fund the retrofitting of infrastructure into our major cities.

Currently, the biggest inhibiter is the cost of land acquisition. When this is too expensive, we revert to tunnelling, and when tunnelling is too expensive nothing happens—and nothing has happened for too long. Value capture provides the potential to develop our regional areas and capture the improved property values that result as the method of funding the infrastructure.

There is significant pressure developing in our cities, highlighting the need to find an affordable supply of land. Our regions can provide this through strong new connectivity which can largely be funded through value capture. Well-planned public infrastructure is central to economic and social development. Australia suffers from an infrastructure deficit, and bold new measures need to be taken to both address this deficit and build the infrastructure to service the future growth in our cities and regions.

I have been most fortunate to meet regularly and discuss policy issues with Mr Joe Langley, one of our nation's leading experts on value capture. I met with Joe last week as he launched his new paper entitled, Value Capture Roadmap, which I strongly recommend to all my colleagues. To quote Joe's eloquent definition:

Value capture funding methods identify and collect an equitable portion of the value released through new zoning and other public improvements, so the communities that pay for them can share in the value created.

We need to bring all three levels of government together to focus on this common goal. We need to identify development corridors and rezone around transport hubs to allow high-density living which will provide the necessary infrastructure and growth whilst protecting the amenity of our suburban areas and our Australian way of life.

Value capture ties into the reforms recommended in the recent reports of the Productivity Commission and Infrastructure Australia. It adds another lever into our policy armoury and creates a sustainable funding loop where the infrastructure creates the growth, the growth creates the funding and the funding creates the infrastructure. This concept offers significant opportunities for my electorate of Bennelong and for the nation. I look forward to working further with Mr Joe Langley and my parliamentary colleagues to bring this policy to fruition.