Finally, it is hardly sensible to simply add a layer of federal-urban intervention without some finer tuning of multi-level governance of the cities. The admittedly limited history of national urban policy in Australia points to the vulnerability of interventions that are linked to a deeper ambition to transform federalism. And yet, the need for new regionally-based approaches to urban management seems evident given the complexity and scale of Australia’s principal urban conurbations. The larger metropolitan areas, especially Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, are now set within extensive, multi-nucleated urban regions, that include formerly independent regional towns and even cities. Brisbane is part of a larger South East Queensland conurbation that includes Ipswich and the Sunshine and Gold Coasts. Sydney is increasingly seen as part of a larger, connected urban landscape that includes the Hunter and Illawarra regions. Effective management of these extensive urban regions invites some new thinking about regional governance. An expanding international literature has pointed to the heightened significance of metropolitan regions in the globalised economy and to the need for governance structures that can maintain their productivity and sustainability (Dodson and Gleeson 2003).

An opportunity exists to respond to these global imperatives, and to the increasingly manifest sustainability pressures on Australia’s cities, through the creation of new structures to manage urban regions. These new regional structures could focus on urban management, without becoming urban governments. They would have some governance qualities, if supervised by elected state and local government representatives, but no direct political authority or responsibilities. The governance of new regional urban management bodies would be strengthened by representation from the Commonwealth, which would also contribute funding. A precedent for this model existed in the cooperative processes that coordinated planning in South East Queensland (SEQ) during the 1990s. Until superseded by a new state based framework in 2005, the SEQ Regional Framework for Growth Management was a governance partnership involving the Queensland State Government, the South East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils and the Commonwealth. Whilst it lacked the directive powers needed for sound urban management, and which now exist in the framework that replaced it, the SEQ Regional Framework pointed to the possibilities for cooperative urban regional governance, involving all three tiers of Australian Government. This chapter concludes by briefly considering what a new approach to urban regional governance might look like.

A range of urban commentators and urban advocacy groups believe that responsibility for everyday urban management should be shifted from state governments to new metropolitan planning authorities, preferably with direct representation from local government. Mark Spiller, president of the Planning Institute of Australia, argues that the States are in a better position than they have been in for a long time to undertake large-scale urban interventions (Spiller 2005a). Their fiscal independence and strength has been greatly enhanced by the GST revenue they now receive from the Commonwealth. Leaving aside the inequity of the specific tax in question, the situation demonstrates the opportunities for improved governance generally when the lower levels of government (state and municipal) are guaranteed some measure of fiscal autonomy; minimising the possibilities for blame and cost shifting between political layers. Spiller argues that the States and territories should use their newfound strength to increase their investment in cities and to effect improvements to urban governance.

The Planning Institute of Australia has proposed new metropolitan planning commissions with a clear and well-resourced brief to manage the cities sustainability and in the collective interest (Spiller 2005b). This would contrast very favourably with the present situation, too often marked by weak or under-resourced state planning departments that leave urban management largely to state road agencies and ill-equipped local governments.

In the governance model proposed by the Planning Institute, the States would continue to provide overall policy guidance on urban and regional affairs, whilst the new metropolitan authorities would undertake everyday management, including planning, in a much less politicised context. The authorities would need to be well-resourced and able to undertake the sorts of urban improvements our cities urgently need, especially in the face of mounting sustainability pressures. The Institute envisages a substantial injection of Commonwealth funds to support the projects of urban improvement by new metropolitan authorities.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (1891-1991) provides one example (minus the federal support) of the broad urban governance model that the PIA has in mind. During its century-long tenure, this institution arguably provided some of the best periods of urban management witnessed in Australia. The Board was an effective, if imperfect, model of cooperative urban governance, based upon direct representation from the municipal layer over which it presided.^[5]

Ultimately, state governments could greatly improve their management of the cities without transforming their governance arrangements in the manner suggested by the Planning Institute. As Parkin observed some time ago:

These insightful comments underline how much could be done to improve the governance of Australia’s urban regions, if state governments simply gave higher priority to urban policy and approached its objects with imagination and energy. In the decades that have passed since Parkin’s observations were recorded, there has been little evidence that state governments are willing to apply his advice consistently. This suggests that the independent metropolitan commission model has substantial practical merit. Further, the cumulative effects of prolonged under-investment in urban infrastructure and services, together with the new challenges arising from globalisation and ecological threat, mean that substantial national investment in the cities is both necessary and urgently required.

There is substantial merit in the Planning Institute’s (2005) accompanying proposal for a new national urban investment fund, which the metro-authorities would draw from – perhaps competitively. Importantly, management of the fund would be guided by sustainability principles, not simply by the contemporary obsession with infrastructure enhancement. The political economist, Frank Stilwell (2006), argues that that these funds should come, at least in part, from the enormous pool of superannuation resources that are, arguably, not presently being put to the best use we might make of them.

Overall, this restructuring should work to clarify and make more effective the governance of our cities rather than making that critical task more complex. It is hard to imagine it ever happening without the Commonwealth recommitting itself to a direct interest in the cities and urban regions. As argued earlier, there are no real barriers outside the realms of political preference to the Commonwealth’s re-entry into urban affairs. And within the realms of the political, it is perhaps as Parkin observed for the States, only a lack of ambition and imagination that continues to stymie this most vital national endeavour.