Paul Keating’s dipping of his toes into the waters of town planning earlier this year has now resulted in him getting a thorough bucketing. He thought the Cahill Expressway should be knocked down on aesthetic grounds because it cut the city from the harbour _ in much the same way as Parkes Way cuts the city from the lake in Canberra.
On the expressway, Keating was talking about how a grubby transport route was messing up the ambiance of the city and the lifestyle of its residents. Now, of course, a different major transport route approved by his government (the third runway) has wrecked the lifestyle of 100,000 residents _ town planning at its worst.
The episodes illustrate the very political nature of town planning _ which goes back some centuries, or indeed, millennium.
We have numerous examples of the expression of political power through the erection of monumental buildings which have continued into the 20th century. But this century has also seen the rise of political power out of the other end of the land use spectrum _ the slums.
Land use is a highly political issue. At is core is the question of what is to be done or imposed collectively and what is to be allowed individually.
It is small wonder, then, that the appointment this week of Evan Walker to the chair of the National Capital Planning Authority was a political one.
It was political not just in the basic sense mentioned in the Assembly this week of a job for one of the Labor mates who had served in the Cain and Kirner Governments in Victoria, but for far deeper reasons than that.
It reflects the politics and life view of the man who made the appointment, the Deputy Prime Minister, Brian Howe.
Howe is usually plonked in the box lablelled “”left faction”.
It is very helpful for political journalists who want to predict how the numbers will line up on the big-ticket items at Labor Party conferences, like uranium and privatisation. It is also helpful when counting heads in the periodic rounds of leadership speculation.
But there is more to it that than. There is a very strong streak of Fabianism in Brian Howe. The Fabians, were the group founded in Britain last century that believed in working within the parliamentary system and other existing structures to achieve reforms for the working class. They did not want revolution or to go to the barricades.
Of course, everyone is a Fabian now. But the Fabian tradition that Howe appears to fit had another element. It was a strongly practical movement that sought to improve living conditions of the working class.
That meant not just a rush for political power but detailed public-works programs to provide sewerage, electricity and running water to the slums of Manchester and other industrial cities.
Founding Fabians Beatrice and Sidney Webb did hugely detailed work on the conditions of the working class and suggestions on how they could be improved. Land and land use were fundamental to that.
For a start, the seething slums of Victorian England were created by the privatisation of common agricultural land which drove the first peasants to the new industrial towns. They formed the base of rapid population growth creating a powerless class that could be exploited.
A lot of the left tradition has been in the struggle for power for that class _ through revolution, parliamentary representation or trade unions. But a lower-profile force has been the empowerment of the less wealthy through controls and changes to land use.
It was to replace of Adam Smith’s invisible hand of laissez-faire economics. In land use terms, the economic rationalist position was one of allowing people to do what they liked with their own land. That was the common-law position. It was individualist and rewarded individuals who had the talent to accumulate wealth.
It meant, of course, that the moneyed class could put their factories where they wanted to and discharge what muck they wanted to while at the same time being able to afford to live, with similarly endowed people, in pleasant surroundings outside the cities.
It is much like the present _ as big business and tourist operators plonk their airport runway where they like and live in posh suburbs while the peasants cop the polluting fall-out, and people put up whatever money-making medium density or taste-offending mansion they like irrespective of neighbours’ wishes.
The Fabian tradition to which Howe belongs sees a role for public money and public regulation to lift the standards of housing for the less wealthy and to curb the excesses of other land uses. Whether he succeeds in putting practice where his heart is will be another matter. There are any number of smart operators willing to make a fast buck or a cosy bureaucratic career out of large, publicly funded programs. There are any number of political operators, too, able to direct those funds in ways politically advantageous to them.
Howe sees the National Capital Planning Authority as a vehicle, or at least potential vehicle, for spreading public regulation and funding to improve the living of those in the poor areas of the cities, especially in decaying industrial areas.
His idea of the best candidate for the National Capital Development Commission, therefore, would be different from that of his predecessor Ros Kelly, who appointed a merchant banker, Joseph Skrzynski, to the role. And different again from previous Ministers who appointed academic and bureaucratic planners.
“”I don’t put a high academic style on it; I’m talking about hands on planning decision-making,” Walker said this week.
The vision thing, the idea of buildings as statements and symbols will have to come from others in the organisation, it seems.
Walker said he would be very consultative.
“I’m a great admirer or what’s been done over the years in Canberra, of the Griffin plan and all that’s happened since,” he said.
Some planners, however, point out with some vigor, that what has happened since the Griffin plan has been thoroughly inconsistent with some of its tenets, especially work by the NCDC in the central area in the early 1960s, and that it would be inconsistent to admire both the Griffin plan and the major work which has happened since.
Walker made it clear, however, that he was newly appointed and so was not fully versed on the NCPA or Canberra.
On higher densities he said, “”Canberra itself has been showing us the way to some degree over the years. Canberra has had a reputation for being in some degree experimental in medium-density housing. My mind goes back to Swinger Hill and developments since then. Not that everyone was in full agreement, but Canberra was able to bring skills to bear on some of those different planning schemes, different sub-divisional schemes and also to employ some of the best architectural talent in the country.
“”Some of those new housing approaches were really done quite well in Canberra. So it is not a question of applying outside knowledge so much as picking up on the best that Canberra has done in the past.”
It is a dated view not shared by many in the NCPA (and one or two former NCPA people who have moved up the Howe urban-design hierarchy) who think that the medium-density experiments in Canberra since self-government in 1989 have been a developer-driven abomination.
Indeed, the head of the task force, John Mant, has been scathing of Canberra’s urban renewal programs.
But the NCPA has little or no control over residential housing. Indeed, a year or so ago when some large blocks in Old Red Hill faced the developer’s knife, residents groups pleaded for NCPA intervention to no avail.
Walker said, “”I think the public needs to be heard on the matter. I think sometimes planners or at least governments rush into things without testing them very well. But I don’t really think that has been the case in Canberra which has set some good examples.
“”It depends on how the densities are maintained and what densities we are talking about.
“”It is important that we don’t upset the quality and livability of the environment that people have enjoyed.”
Walker is to come to Canberra this week for briefings about the NCPA, its recent work, its role in the city and on Canberra generally.
He expresses a view similar to Howe on infrastructure.
“”It is important that we make good use of the our infrastructure investments, and in many ways we were living very expensively with services and road costs.”
It is a view, applauded by some elements of the conservation movement, that has justified the push to greater urban densities.
There is some irony in it because unless it is done well, lower paid people will be back where they started _ in newly created slums.
Walker appears to be aware of this.
“”Increasing densities moderately is the way to go,” he said. “”That is the Australian message. It can be done well it requires excellent urban design and architecture to do it well so that the quality that Australians enjoy are not lost.”
On the Triangle he said, “”I’m not an expert on it. I’m an admirer of it. Canberra is a very lovely city around the lake. One must be very careful about that.
“”My job is to chair a very good authority, not to launch out and make individual decisions. I shall certainly be consultative in that regard.”
He rejected the Canberra-bashing exercises of the past and its image as a pampered city.
With the models of Ottawa and Washington, there was a reasonable history of modern nations determining to build a capital where the governance of the nation is directed from a city built for that purpose.
“”Canberra in that regard has a pretty good record,” he said. “”For many years people thought it isolated, but it recent times it has flourished . . . especially as a tourist destination. People love to go there and feel proud about their nation.
“”People like to feel to be part of the way the country is governed simply by visiting.”
His favourite Canberra building is the School of Music, which he helped design.
“”It was a successful building. . . . I like the architecture of that era. it is strongly moulded or sculptured building in concrete. I think it works well. I’m also fond of buildings that work well.
“”I also like Col Madigan’s art gallery (National Gallery of Australia) for similar reasons and its from a similar era.
“”They are working buildings mostly,” he said. “”I rather appreciate spaces internally of the music school music and the gallery and the uses they are put to. They are not so much formal public buildings as they are working buildings where people can visit and where good music is made or good art is hung.”
Critics of these buildings say they have no entrance, no sense of saying “”You have arrived at the National Gallery”. Their entrances are tucked away off the main street address; they have no signage to indicate what they are. Their design is very much utilitarian and people’s buildings, not “”big-statement” buildings.”
Howe’s agenda for the NCPA goes beyond Canberra. He wants it to help with his Better Cities program.
The Prime Minster’s Urban Design Task Force (of which Walker was a member) recommended that the NCPA be looked at as a source of professional advice for other towns and cities around Australia.
It is also moving to export its planning expertise, doing in work in Malaysia and other south-east Asian countries.
The NCPA is a vehicle for Howe’s social agenda _ one that historically has required a strong role of government. It is in the Fabian tradition _ a very practical view of working within the system to improve the lot of the masses. In Australia that sort of program is hindered, somewhat ironically, by having too much government, in that we have three levels of it.
Howe takes the view that cities and urban renewal are very much national issues, rather than purely state or local ones. He does not have to use the foreign affairs power to overcome any constitutional problems. The High Court ruled in the mid-1970s that the Commonwealth can slop money around for whatever purposes it likes. There was $800 million over three years for Better Cities. And once the Commonwealth slops money about the usually the states’ snouts, hearts and minds follow.
In picking Walker for the job, Howe got someone well versed in state planning.
Walker was Minister for Planning and then Minister for Major Projects over seven years in Victoria. Until the end of this year he has been Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and professorial fellow at Melbourne University.
But the appointment has not been without controversy.
The next day Independent MLA Michael Moore described it as “”one of the worst cases of a mate being appointed under the mates system _ of Mr Howe appointing one of his Labor mates.”
Mr Moore said he could find no substantive publications to Walker’s name.
“”So how did he get appointed professor?” he asked. “”It followed a donation to the University of Melbourne by a major developer who happened to get a major controversial project through when he was Minister for Major Projects.
Moore said Walker had a masters degree in architecture from the University of Toronto, however, he would have expected an academic to have significant publications.
Walker rejected Moore’s assertions. He said that his background was professional, not academic. Universities appointed professorial fellows from time to time with those backgrounds. His position as dean was largely administrative.
While dean he did seek funding from developers for the university, “”but to suggest there was a quid pro with his position was scandalous”.
Walker’s appointment as part-time Dean of Architecture at Melbourne University led to controversy and court action in 1991. At one stage Professor Walker was a backbencher while holding the university post.
Sunday Age journalist Paul Robinson requested information about the appointment and the donor under the Freedom of Information Act. The university refused, but it did not deny a donation had been made.
One witness in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal suggested the donation had been made specifically for Professor’s Walker’s position; another said the university had enough money for the appointment, but the donation would “”facilitate” it.
Howe says the appointment is a good one and that Walker has solid standing among his peers and a good professional background.
Walker says he has a strong planning background, including the appointment on the Urban Design Task Force, so his appointment “”is not a matter of political background so much as professional involvement and I think that speaks for itself.”
He says of his term as State Minister, “”I think my record here is pretty good. People will you that it was in my time that Southbank was put in train. In my time we prepared the first ever statutory plan for the city of Melbourne in 1982. That’s been in place ever since. Even the change of government hasn’t altered that. And that sort of work has been much admired I think.”
In Walker’s appointment the potential is there for the NCPA to become an awkward hybrid. The NCPA’s role in Canberra is not primarily one of urban residential lifestyle; that role has mostly gone to the Territory (for better or worse). The NCPA’s role is to concentrate on the capital-city element of the place: the ceremonial and symbolic. The Walker and Howe combination suggests that the former might be promoted at the expense of the latter.
Howe’s mission to fix up industrial blight, renew old docklands and get rid of slums is very laudable and fits a long political tradition. But you have to wonder whether he has chosen the right vehicle for it. The tradition of his framework is very collectivist. Whereas, Canberra is about symbolism, nationhood and creation not renewal _ it is too new to be renewed.
And while the NCPA does various laudable things all around the nation and the world, it may end up with a similar embarrassment as Keating and the airport, as right in the very city it occupies poor quality urban renewal is permitted in places where it is utterly unnecessary.