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href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/oil-shortages-could-turn-outer-suburbs-into-slums-20101227-198lm.html">http://www.smh.com.au/national/oil-shortages-could-turn-outer-suburbs-into-slums-20101227-198lm.html</A></FONT></DIV>
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<H1 class="cN-headingPage prepend-5 span-11 last">Oil shortages could turn outer
suburbs into slums </H1>
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<H5>Andrew West </H5>
<DIV>Sydney Morning Herald</DIV><CITE>December 28, 2010</CITE>
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<P>AUSTRALIA will be forced to rely on huge quantities of imported oil unless it
radically overhauls its transport and urban policies, according to a study by
the Planning Institute of Australia.</P>
<P>It warns that without urgent national action the trade deficit will spiral
and many outer suburbs will become slums.</P>
<P>The study comprises a series of papers in the latest edition of the journal
<I>Australian Planner</I>. One of the authors, Professor Peter Newman of Curtin
University, who is also an adviser to the federal government, said the most
compelling finding was that ''urban sprawl is finished''. ''If we continue to
roll out new land [releases] and suburbs that are car dependent, they will
become the slums of the future,'' he said.</P>
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<P>Professor Newman, who serves on the board of the federal agency
Infrastructure Australia, has begun briefing the Council of Australian
Governments on the need to test all future urban development against the
potential for an oil shortage.</P>
<P>He said every state should duplicate a Queensland law that requires local
councils to conduct an ''oil dependence study'' when approving new developments.
''The Queensland approach has to become the national approach and it's quite
possible that COAG will adopt it as the standard,'' he said.</P>
<P>The study's co-ordinator, Dr Jago Dodson of Griffith University, forecast a
grim future, with Australia's trade deficit, which was $9.3 billion in 2008-09,
due to hit $25 billion by 2015, largely because of oil imports. ''Australia
possesses huge energy reserves in coal and gas but only modest petroleum
reserves, holding just 0.3 per cent of the world's oil,'' he writes.</P>
<P>Australia's oil production peaked in 2000. His paper finds the transport
sector accounts for 70 per cent of the country's petroleum consumption. ''Road
vehicles accounted for 75 per cent of Australian transport fuel consumption and
passenger vehicles comprise 62 per cent of this total.</P>
<P>''With Australian cities so clearly exposed to the effects of depleting
global oil supplies, our urban planning should … turn its attention to
mitigating oil vulnerability and adapting Australian cities to an
oil-constrained world.''</P>
<P>Some cities are expected to record big increases in the number of vehicle
kilometres travelled. In south-east Queensland, a 48 per cent increase by 2026
is forecast, a big factor in the state government's decision to build the Gold
Coast light rail network.</P>
<P>''Cities will be among the most significant areas where the social and
economic impacts of declining global petroleum security will be experienced,''
Dr Dodson writes.</P>
<P>''For metropolitan planners who are tasked with ensuring cities are resilient
to future threats of all kinds, the mitigation of oil vulnerability should be a
major planning concern.''</P>
<P>Professor Newman said the cost of building public transport to remote suburbs
on the urban fringe would ultimately become prohibitive, and Australian
policymakers were ''about 30 years behind the times'' in wrestling with the
problem.</P>
<P>The president of the planning institute, Neil Savery, said the need for a
national policy was critical.</P>
<P>''There is no question that oil supplies, beyond a certain point, will become
increasingly rare that we will have to develop alternatives if we are to enjoy
the level of mobility we enjoy now,'' he
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