The Growth Management Position Paper produced by Sunshine Coast Council and now publicly available is a document that seeks to meet, as best as it is able, community aspirations for the future.

It is a challenging body of work.

Now being considered by the state government as part of its South East Queensland Regional Plan Review, it demands that greater respect be shown to this region’s environmental values and that growth only be allowed inside the constraints of those values and the ability of developers, state and local government to supply the infrastructure to service it.

In the provision of that infrastructure, however, lies the rub.

The state government may well feel comfortable in sending a representative to a community forum last Thursday night to pledge that greenfield areas identified for fast-tracked development approval “must be developed with appropriate infrastructure”.

But just what constitutes appropriate infrastructure and whether or not it is delivered in a manner that shows appropriate respect for this region’s vision of sustainability remains to be seen.

The state government’s Sunshine Coast Enterprise Needs Investigation, an attempt to identify land for future industry, is now also publicly available.

It has a more flippant regard to the value of agricultural land than that expressed in the position paper and if it makes reference to climate change, my first admittedly cursory examination of its more than 100 pages, failed to see it.

The Sunshine Coast Enterprise Needs Investigation, unlike the Growth Management Position Paper, is not informed by the outcome or the policy platforms of the amalgamation election.

It is based on the assumption that the region is short more than 800 hectares of land for industrial development to meet the demands of growth now and until 2026. It expects that more land would need to be identified to meet growth beyond that date.

At its core is the the old thinking that created the unsustainable cities that now dot the planet.

It is a school of thought that has as its core tenet that growth can be infinite, that mankind has the technologies to adapt our environment to cater for any level of demand and that those changes are acceptable.

The Growth Management Position paper takes an entirely different approach.

Not only does it accept unreservedly the realities of climate change, but it attempts to come to logical conclusions about the impacts of that change and what they will mean to our region.

In relation to industrial land, it rules out some areas previously included in the old council Local Growth Management Strategies because of either concerns about flooding or impacts on significant areas of vegetation.

It contends that additional industrial land is available inside existing areas and that capacity could be increased by “encouraging improved site layouts and the relocation of non industrial uses”.

Importantly, it supports the contention of the former council LGMSs that push innovation and a “focus on knowledge-based industries which are likely to change the nature and scale of employment areas”.

Council has yet to respond to the Sunshine Coast Enterprise Needs Investigation. However its position paper concludes that the “allocation of additional industrial land is likely to divert focus from the efficient use of existing industrial areas and impact on the provision of infrastructure and services”.

The position paper in its settings acknowledges the weight of science on climate change and the fragility of our rapidly diminishing biodiversity.

It is in step with Kevin Rudd’s climate change carbon trading initiative which is about forcing through the impost of price a change in behaviour by individuals and industry.

The Prime Minister’s policy is flawed only in that it probably doesn’t go far enough – restrained as it is by the politics of what the electorate is prepared to bear.

That is a problem with which the Sunshine Coast Council is not faced.

Its imperative was to match election rhetoric with policy settings that reflect community aspirations.

The problem it will face is reaching an agreement with a state government still computer-modelling the future on the basis that “all growth is good, now tell us where you can put it”?

The council and community’s response to that question may well be summed up as “if growth doesn’t fit the model for sustainability we are trying to develop put it somewhere else, we don’t want or need it.”