The people of the ACT have some grounds for self-congratulation over the latest Social Trends figures issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, but we should not become too smug. The trends found that Canberrans live longer, healthier and wealthier lives that people in other states and territories. We are less likely to die in a car accident, less like to commit suicide, have the highest incomes, lowest social security dependency, highest educational standard and so on. However, we have among the highest alcohol consumption and the lowest fertility.
Some of these statistics have lessons for others in Australia. For all of the Canberra-bashing that goes on in Australia, it seems that having a planned city must have some major benefits. But so also does a huge amount of the federal money spent over the years creating the place including its health and education infrastructure and a large influx of highly educated federal public servants. It also helps to have a younger population than elsewhere and one concentrated in one city – unlike the other states and territories.
If Canberrans are leading longer, healthier, more educative and therefore perhaps happier lives, it seems there is a lot to be said for public spending on – nay, investing in — health, education and infrastructure. It means good economics, too, even from the Government’s point of view. Canberrans earn higher incomes and therefore pay more tax.
The key, though, seems to be education. The first major burst of population in Canberra — from between 1955 and 1975 – were mainly public servants with higher education standards than the population as a whole. They in turn sought good education for their own children. They valued it for its own sake. The correlation between higher educational standards and a whole range of beneficial social and economic outcomes is fairly common. There is also a correlation between high education and lower fertility – up to a point that can be beneficial, but if fertility goes into decline below replacement, it can cause problems.
The lesson for Canberrans is to resist the temptation to want to be like everyone else in Australia and have a city the same as other cities. We should take pride in our difference and seek to maintain it and enhance it, particularly by insisting government concentrates its efforts on education, health and the built and natural environment.
But let us hope that all this excellence does not further drive us to drink. That is one statistic we can do without.