THE first stages of the state government’s Pilbara Cities program might look like little more than an attempt to make up for lost time with basic infrastructure and some tarting up of town centres, but the vision underpinning the Royalties for Regions spe
THE first stages of the state government’s Pilbara Cities program might look like little more than an attempt to make up for lost time with basic infrastructure and some tarting up of town centres, but the vision underpinning the Royalties for Regions spending creates a far bigger opportunity for business.
According to state projections, cities such as Port Hedland and Karratha are expected to more than double their populations within as little as 15 years, growing to 50,000 people or more each within a couple of decades.
Currently, the population of the entire Pilbara region is barely 50,000. Smaller towns and the hinterland are anticipating similar growth levels over the coming years as the region’s economy attempts the twin challenges of supporting the fast-growing resources sector and diversifying away from its current mining monopoly.
“It is nation-building stuff, and it is probably the first time it has been done in Australia,” said urban economist Michael Knight, a senior consultant at South Perth-based consultancy Pracsys.
Mr Knight and his colleague Michael Chappell are part of a multidisciplinary team working with Landcorp on the revitalisation strategies for north-west communities. They are among a host of planners, designers and demographers are putting their minds to what the region needs for the future.
Others include: Macroplan’s managing director Brian Haratsis, who has been working with BHP Billiton; design think tank FORM executive director Lynda Dorrington, who has been working with global planning expert Charles Landry; and Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute director Professor Peter Newman, who has co-authored a report in a joint venture with HASSELL and Parsons Brinckerhoff.
High-profile KPMG partner and demographer Bernard Salt has also weighed into public discussion about the region’s future, strongly advocating the need for a big defence force base in the region, which would help signal the value Australia place on its resources and provide diversity in the economy.
By way of example, Mr Knight said the government’s public plan to grow Karratha to 50,000 people required planning for a major population centre, not just more of the same as it had today.
He said the 24 Australian cities considered large and sustainable would typically have a ratio of workers to residents of 45 per cent.
“In a city of 50,000 you would need somewhere around 20,000 to 23,000 in a resident workforce, not FIFO, that’s a growth rate of 300 per cent from now,” Mr Knight said.
He said there is a lot of work going into this within government entities, such as Landcorp, but the challenges were significant – going well beyond improving amenity through revitalisation work.
“There is a difference between planning for something and planning to get there,” Mr Knight said. “If you don’t have a strategy for the development of the Pilbara you can’t plan strategic industry-specific infrastructure that is needed.
“The secondary argument is why do we need that because we have a resources industry? Yes that has operated for a long time but it is cyclical and it is insufficient to supply the population required.”
Mr Chappell points at the need to develop a much bigger Pilbara-based service community to create the diversity required for a sustainable community. That includes business that directly services the resources sector, developing muscle on a local supply chain, which is poorly developed at present.
“The arithmetic doesn’t work. It is not diverse enough,” Mr Chappell said.
“Less than 5 per cent of the supply chain are located in this region, normally that would be about 20 per cent.”
This, along with other industry development in areas such as defence, agriculture, tourism and government, would help to create the diversity needed in the Pilbara for it to become a sustainable population centre.
Mr Haratsis agrees with much of the conventional thinking and believes that government understands much of the work that is needed, particularly bringing down the price of housing because it is as much as 40 per cent too high.
But he wonders if that is enough when billions of dollars of capital will be needed to cope with the demand that is coming.
Taking a less-than-traditional approach to the problem, Mr Haratsis thinks the Pilbara could allow the private sector to fund much of the development required, just as it has done for the mining sector.
“One of the big things on show in the north-west is there is not enough capital available to build cities,” Mr Haratsis said.
He suggests offshore funding for developments similar to those done in Perth today, such as Alkimos where private developers will pay for public infrastructure, just on a grander scale.
Mr Haratsis even suggests a privately funded rival city to Karratha and Port Hedland to provide competition on prices.
“How do we get patient money to invest in infrastructure required to supply the resources sector which has a much greater return?” he asked.
“This is the time to stop worrying about vision and start working out what the toolbox is.”