The Federal Government should retreat to the Parliamentary Triangle, leaving the rest of Canberra to develop like any other Australian city, a former chairman of the Grants Commission, Justice Rae Else-Mitchell, said yesterday.
He said there was little more to do on the national scale in Canberra, so the Federal Government should look after the Triangle and a few major national institutions outside it and let the rest of Canberra be just like a state.
From 1957, when the National Capital Development Commission began, to the time of Fraser Government, “”vast amounts of public money were spent in the ACT.” The money spent on national institutions was by-and-large “”a proper manifestation of national aspirations”, however, the money spent on non-national services to the populations was “”extravagant and beyond the standards of similar projects and services provided to the rest of Australia’s citizens living in the cities, towns and rural areas of the states”.
“”Canberra should not be an elite city,” he said. “”It should take its place with Sydney, Melbourne and the rest of Australia.”
The ACT would be a democracy in charge of its own destiny like any of the states _ with similar funding arrangements.
This was more in tune with notions of Australia as one nation.
He was speaking at a forum, including a panel of 15 academics, at the University of Canberra on “”Future Options for Canberra”. It was a lead-up to the September “”Canberra: Face of the Nation?” conference sponsored by the university, the Canberra Business Council, the ACT Government and the National Capital Planning Authority.
Justice Else-Mitchell drew an immediate response from cities expert Professor Max Neutze, who said Canberra was far from complete and the Federal Government must rekindle its interest in Canberra lest it become just another provincial city.
Canberra was special. For the past 40 years it had been a symbol of the high aspirations of the Australian people. Canberra was the vision of the Founding Fathers as a symbol of national unity. Nearly all the major federal countries had separate capital cities which symbolised their nationhood: the US, India, Canada and Germany.
“”Canberra is one of the best planned cities in the world,” he said. As capital cities grew, demands for democracy for their residents grew. There was a danger, though, that “”the pendulum will swing too far from all the decisions taken by the national government in the national interest, to all the decisions being taken by the territory government in the interests of Canberra residents. We have not yet got the balance right.”
Since self-government in the ACT, “”parliamentarians seem to think they can forget about Canberra”.
Another debate at the forum centred around the role of technology and the arts.
Educationist Professor Peter Karmel condemned castles in the air and predictions of gee-whizz technologies. Dale Budd called for a high-speed rail link between Canberra and Sydney.
Wordsmith Professor Ralph Elliott wanted more cultural events and concentration on the humanities and arts (a better barometer of national health than the balance of payments figures). Information technologist Dr John O’Callaghan wanted to see Canberra develop as centre for internationally competitive information-technology companies in Canberra.
Dr O’Callaghan said that about 40 per cent of some companies’ labour costs were tied up in document handling. There would be a big demand for electronic handling of documents. Forty per cent of IT spending in Australia was by government. Canberra had a unique opportunity to take advantage of this. Local companies should get a share of the action. And there should be more of them. Canberra could be the centre for distributing news in multi-media formats, based on coverage from the Australian Parliament.
Professor Karmel thought Canberra should concentrate on its strengths, especially education. Canberra’s education market could be worldwide. Concentrating on education would reinforce that we already value and was an area in which we had a comparative advantage.
Canberra had the most highly educated population in Australia. Canberra already had half its tertiary-student population coming from elsewhere and spent 10 times per head on research than the rest of Australia. Canberra could build upon the educational needs of the Federal Government.
He called for another undergraduate institution, arguing small is beautiful in the undergraduate world even though a critical mass was needed in the post-graduate research world.
The panel was chaired by Katharine West.
Other speakers were as follows:
The Ambassdor of Japan, Kazutoshi Hasegawa, said Canberra would play an important role in improving Australia’s proficiency at dealing with Asia in business, education and the arts.
Dr Bob Bitmead, director Co-operative Research Centre of Robust and Adaptive Systems, said Canberra was well-placed in the technology cycle that brought pure research to practical application.
Professor Bob Blanden, of the John Curtin School of Medical Research, argued for a full medical school to help bring together pure bio-medical researchers with those with practical problems.
Professor Mary O’Kane, the dean of UC’s Faculty of Information Sciences, said more should be done to link Canberra’s information databases to make them more accessible and useful.
Dr Graeme Osborne, of UC’s department of communication, called for a National Communication Research and Training Institute in Canberra. More detail on what these speakers said will appear in the weekend papers and Monday’s computer pages. pc On Saturday: 2020 vision, what it means for Canberra.