Speech to Brisbane Council Chambers, General Business, 26 Nov 2024, Councillor Seal Chong Wah

I rise to speak on the future of Brisbane as a Sustainable City, under LNP leadership.

This LNP administration likes to spruik their claims of Brisbane being the most clean, green and sustainable city in Australia.

This is an old story, a story that was fed by its legacy of gifted parks and trees planted from a much earlier time. It is a story that is now more hype, mistruths and lost hopes.

Brisbane is a wealthy City and could easily be a world leader in sustainability, as many Scandinavian and European cities are. But it is not.

• The world’s leading Sustainable City Index’s, ‘Arcadis’, now ranks Perth, Melbourne and Sydney ahead of Brisbane.
• While this Council celebrated their recent ‘GDS’ Sustainability Index, ranking, what they don’t reveal is that Brisbane is actually well behind Sydney and Melbourne in the 2024 rankings, with the difference increasing, not decreasing.

Being a sustainable city means investing in public and active transport, urban farming, renewable energy, waste management, water conservation, biodiversity, addressing climate change, creating livable streetscapes, access to affordable housing and most importantly - thriving local communities. 

Sustainability is not just about having lots of trees. But even on this indicator, Brisbane’s claims do not stack up.

This LNP administration likes to spruik the idea that Brisbane is the greenest city with the highest Tree canopy coverage of any capital city in Australia.

• This is also just plainly not true. 
• The City of Hobart actually has the highest tree canopy coverage of 59%, compared to Brisbane’s 44%.
• But unlike Brisbane, Hobart is more honest and acknowledges that some of that area is not an urban populated area. 
• Unlike Brisbane, The City of Hobart has transparently published all the data and has a genuine strategy to increase tree canopy coverage in its populated urban area.
• While our Brisbane council, won’t publish its detailed data and hides the fact that its tree canopy figures includes large non-urban areas like South D'aguilar National Park, Mt Coot-Tha Forest Reserve and Moggill Conservation Park.

Here is a little summary of where Brisbane is heading:

• The LNP administration just forced through hidden changes to the City Plan that will result in 290 hectares less greenspace over the next 12 years - relative to our fast growing population.
• Our 10% deep planting target for large developments is failing, with many developments being approved with Zero Percent (0%) deep planting.
• The 5 announced Green bridges are dropping like flies.
• Our LNP Mayor is trying to sell Victoria Park to be turned into an Olympic stadium - instead of the iconic central city Park, he promised.
• Instead of converting 26 Hectares of the Mt Coot-tha Quarry into recreational greenspace, the Mayor is instead promoting Hotels and private tourism development.
• The amount of suburban Sports Fields, compared to population, are in decline. Our children can no longer play the local sport they want.
• This Council’s Inner-city Strategy is in a mess, with badly planned, unsustainable high density areas, like: 
  • South City Square, creating poorly designed wind tunnel effects; 
  • Milton Urban Density area, with virtually no greenspace and insufficient deep planting. 
  • The concrete jungle of the CBD and surrounds, that will become even more unlivable in climate change induced heatwaves.
  • West End High Density area, is a flood zone that is now seeing major floods every decade. Just 2 years ago we saw massive impacts on its residents.
  • Kangaroo Point peninsula, despite being an inner-city suburb, is serviced by some of the worst public transport of any Brisbane suburb, with virtually no local shops, forcing most residents to drive daily.
• And Homelessness in Brisbane has risen at 3 to 4 times the average Australian rate, over the last 7 years, with increasing numbers of its residents forced to live in its parks.

There is clear evidence that this LNP administration is completely failing to provide the leadership and vision required to manage Brisbane’s fast population growth rate.

While the world struggles to comprehend and adapt, to prevent highly destructive climate change, the leaders of our city lack a bold vision to ensure Brisbane is resilient and livable in the coming decades.  

Brisbane urgently needs visionary leadership that can provide sophisticated and sustainable planning to ensure this city is resilient.

Resilient enough to meet the very real, emerging crises that we face, now, and in the coming decades.