The Parliamentary triangle is falling apart, according to the National Capital Planning Authority.
But the Minister responsible for it, Ros Kelly, says this is not the case. Mrs Kelly says Old Parliament House would make an excellent portrait Gallery.
The chairman of the NCPA, Joseph Skrzynski, has expressed his concerns in a recent speech to the Canberra Business Council, a copy of which was obtained .
He is concerned about a rapidly increasing population density and the deterioration in the Parliamentary Triangle and the funding for its upkeep.
He says that Canberra is a seen as a car-dependent, low-density city over-funded by the Federal Government. In a myth-debunking speech he said the opposite was true.
“”Canberrans use their cars less than the people of any other capital in Australia,” he said. “In 1988 (the most recent figures) vehicle kilometres travelled in Canberra represented about 6300 per person, compared with more than 9000 in Perth, 8000 in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart and a little under 8000 in Sydney and Darwin.”
Mr Skrzynski indicated that the trend since 1976 was for Canberra to be less and less dependent on the car while the other capital depended upon it more.
“Canberra’s population density is increasing more quickly than almost every other Australian city. The policy of including sites for medium density housing in greenfields development of the city fringe was unique to the national capital when introduced almost 30 year sago and remains rare. This has been the key to Canberra attaining efficient urban densities without losing its garden-city character, and it remains the key to further increases in density without a loss of amenity.”
Canberra was the only mainland capital where the use of public transport for work was increasing.
“”Canberra is not a low-density sprawling city,” he said. Its urban density of 14 per hectare is third in Australia behind Sydney (18) and Melbourne (16) and ahead of Adelaide (13), Perth (11) and Brisbane (10), and was increasing faster than almost everywhere else.
Those arguing for quick and dramatic changes in the transport systems, metropolitan structure and employment policies did not realise that present good planning had already achieved the result.
However, Canberra was missing out in the Parliamentary Triangle. Australians had made a huge investment yet fewer people were coming to see it. Visits to major attractions totalled 5,597,000 in 1989, 5,197,000 in 1990, 4,492 in 1991 and this year would fall further.
This week, incidentally, is National Attractions Week which aims to encourage more Australians to see the major attractions in their national capital.
The answer was not the recession; visitors to other places had fallen less. It was because of a failure to market. Canberra should be marketed as the national capital with a critical mass of institutions. Parliament House, the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery, the National Library, Government House, the Lodge, embassies and so on represented a unique reflection of our national character.
One of the functions of the NCPA was to foster and awareness of that, but the Government had not funded that function.
Australians in a federal democracy had a right to an understanding of that democracy. The Commonwealth must fund its promotion. Democracy would be strengthened by it.
The contrary was true. The Commonwealth was allowing the Parliamentary Triangle to run down.
Mr Skrzynski listed specific examples:
The promenade along the parliamentary foreshore is incomplete. Paving along the promenade is incomplete and unfunded; irrigation systems need replacing or upgrading; trees and shrubs are dying; exotic evergreen trees are dying and the triangle is looking bleak in winter; Bowen Drive requires reconstruction; King George V statute has dangerous crumbling masonry; ponds in front of Old Parliament House are derelict and pose a safety hazard; the Captain Cook jet’s underwater piping leaks, surfaces and carparks are broken uneven and poorly lit; paths are broken.
“”Old Parliament House is a great disappointment which robs visiting Australians of an invaluable insight into their political and parliamentary history,” Mr Skrzynski said.
Here Mrs Kelly agreed. Though disagreeing that the Parliamentary Triangle was showing worse for wear, she thought, too, that Old Parliament House presented a great opportunity. It should be a portrait gallery, she said. Agreeing that one day it could be like the Tate Gallery in London. It should be a constitutional museum as well. it could also have appropriate offices, like those of the Heritage Commission and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission.
The trouble was Australia’s penchant for Rolls Royce funding. Estimates had been given of $68 million to clear the asbestos out of the building; but it should not cost this much. The whole thing could be started reasonably cheaply. It needed some lateral thinking.
It was now under the Department of Administrative Services. It should come under Territories where it cold be used for heritage and arts purposes, rather than as an administrative burden.
Mrs Kelly thought that at the end of the day the Australian Museum would not be in the Parliamentary Triangle, but there was no reason why a portrait gallery and constitutional museum could not be.
She thought the Rubens exhibition and others like it was the way to attract visitors and the way to get the city going.
Mr Skrzynski, whose speech followed a detailed NCPA landscape management and maintenance study of the parliamentary zone, said, “”However, just and the opportunities present themselves we approach the period in which the rapid deterioration of the infrastructure of in the central area of the national capital will become more and more visible to residents and visitors alike unless urgent action is taken to reverse current trends.”
The NCPA’s budget had decreased from $4.652 million in 1989-90, to $1.5 in 1990-91 and $1.4 million in 1991-92.
But the future could be bright. Tourism existed because of the national institutions. The private sector, too, could be proud of its contribution, and the NCPA envisaged a greater role. Kingston foreshores, Acton Peninsula and West Basin presented opportunities which would not detract from the garden city. The sites gained their value from the open-space planning which generations of planners and government had protected.