Eighty-three years ago today (March 12), Lady Denman, wife of the Governor-General of Australia, officially named Canberra and unveiled the foundation stone in what is now the parliamentary triangle.
From the very start, bureaucrats and politicians attempted to stultify vision with concerns of commerce and cost.
In 1911 an international design competition for the new national capital was won by Walter Burley Griffin. It was inspired by the American cities beautiful movement – a highly idealistic group which sought, through human ingenuity of design, to create better places for humans to live. It sought practical, efficient, beautiful and satisfactory places to live, as opposed to the uncontrolled chaotic urban sprawl resulting from industrialisation.
Finish and French entries came second and third. King O’Malley, the Member of Parliament placed in charge of the competition, referred all three placegetter’s designs to a departmental board which came up with a hotch-potch combination of the entries.
A change in government fortunately saved us from this spoilt-brooth approach to town planning.
In the intervening 83 years the tension between the intelligent ideal and idiotic immediacy has never ceased. Indeed, it has become more vociferous since self-government in 1989.
In this very birthday week, the tension surfaced again with a call by the Member for Canberra, Bob McMullan, for the powers of the National Capital Authority to be curbed in favour of greater powers over the planning and direction of Canberra going to local authorities.
McMullan told Parliament, “Self-Government is no longer an experiment or a risk, but an accepted fact. We now have our first elected majority government. I am very pleased to say that it is a Labor majority government. It does show a maturity of attitude towards the constituents here in Canberra concerning their ACT self-governing assembly. It is time to re-examine the safeguards that were thought necessary before the introduction of self-government. I think it is time to consider absolutely getting rid of some of them.”
Wrong. When one party dominates a single-house parliament is the very time not to be reducing checks and balances.
McMullan called for a reduction in the power of the National Capital Authority. He said the NCA had “unlimited capacity to interfere in planning matters in the ACT”.
What a bizarre use of the word “interfere”. Canberra is the nation’s capital. When the national authority exercises the powers given to it by the national parliament it is not interference.
AS examples of “interference”, McMullan cited the NCA’s rejection of the ACT Government’s proposal to increase the size of Uriarra and Pierce’s Creek upon rebuilding them after the bushfire. He cited also the NCA’s control over all of Canberra’s main avenues such that the territory “must seek works approval from the NCA before it can remove an unsafe tree”. He cited the NCA’s rejection of the Territory’s proposed redevelopment of the link building between the Canberra Theatre and the Playhouse. He cited also the NCA’s rejection of the Territory’s preferred route for Gungahlin Drive.
All of these, according to McMullan, were examples of NCA interference in purely local matters.
Wrong. They are good examples of why a strong national authority is required in Canberra to protect national interests against short-term (mainly commercial) expediency of a local government which can rarely see past next year’s rates and land tax revenue.
The NCA’s concern about Uriarra and Pierce’s Creek was the possibility of the creation of a yuppie rural-residential area. It would have been big bucks for the ACT Government. But as with rural residential across the northern ACT border in NSW, there were legitimate concerns about the efficiency of the land use and environmental and water problems.
Of more significance was the dangerous precedent for land speculation if rural-residential developments could be created willy-nilly close to the city. The very reason for the provision in the Constitution for a large federal territory was to stop land speculation. When the local government engages in it, of course there is a role for the national authority to stop it.
The removal of trees on main avenues and the theatre development are good examples of the need for a national authority.
The ACT Government has been a richly undeserving beneficiary of the Commonwealth’s arboreal legacy. The decades of work of Charles Weston and Lindsay Pryor in developing tree-lined streetscapes with each street having a consistent species has been allowed to rot like a pre-fluoride teenager’s teeth. The Territory has not replanted or forced residents to replant street trees. You can see the gaps – look at the gaps in the Argyll apples along Endeavour Street or Hamelin Crescent, for example. Others abound. We need an NCA program to replant the gaps in the street trees throughout the city, because we know the Territory will not do it.
The NCA had a legitimate role with the theatre. Indeed, the NCA has been too weak with the Territory over Civic. It watched idly while the Territory vandalised one of the key axes in Burley Griffin’s plan: the vista from the Civic Square precinct to the top of Mount Ainslie. It is now blighted with an ugly shopping centre. It was an unwarranted grab at a bit of public land – Ainslie Avenue — for commercial purposes. The Territory Government showed its complete insensitivity to the national asset – the genius of the Burley Griffin plan that carries the mind and eye of the urban dweller to the natural beauty beyond. Now from Civic Square all you see is a shopping mall.
As for Gungahlin Drive, the Territory showed no consideration for a major national institution – the Australian Institute of Sport. It wanted to stick a multi-lane traffic route right next door. Again, a triumph of the pursuit of votes and money over the pursuit of excellence.
And speaking of Gungahlin, what an utter hash the Territory Government made of that. And Gungahlinites suffer to this day because the Territory was too spineless to put controls on private-sector development to provide verges, public spaces and streets wide enough for a garbage truck to enter.
McMullan said federal government involvement in Canberra should be restricted “to the essential central areas of national land”.
Wrong. Canberra, the nation’s capital, is more than Parliament House and the War Memorial. It still stands for an ideal where human ingenuity, vision and planning can produce a better place to live. That is a national asset. Contrary to McMullan’s assertion, successive Territory Governments – intent on votes and revenue — have not shown the maturity to nurture that, and probably never will.