You can trust an ACT Government (of whatever complexion) to demonstrate that it cannot be trusted to respect the national elements of Canberra.
Within a few days of the Federal Government foolishly announcing that the National Capital Authority would be culled and its planning functions virtually surrendered to the ACT, the ACT Government announced a plan to put 500 paid-parking lots on the grassy area west of the southern side of Commonwealth Ave Bridge. It will be an eyesore in the national area.
The ACT department says the parking area will be bitumen. The Minister, John Hargreaves, says not. Perhaps that indicates the state of planning and co-ordination in the ACT body politic.
The temporary carpark is the product of poor or no planning stemming from parochial ACT interests and contrary to the overall national interest of all Australians in their capital.
Yes, it is only a carpark. Yes, it is only temporary. But it is still an eyesore. And it is smack in national area, across the water from the NATIONAL Museum of Australia and the NATIONAL Library of Australia.
Why did it happen? The ACT Government flogged off a prime piece of real estate on London Circuit for $92 million. Great for the coffers. Great for appeasing and wooing voters. Trouble is the site was a carpark used by those same voters who commute to Civic.
Until the site is redeveloped with underground parking, these people will have nowhere to park. Heaven forbid that public transport be made attractive enough so they would not miss the former carpark.
This one temporary carpark of itself would not matter much. But it is an example of broader trends which suggest that the ACT should never be the sole planning authority for all of the ACT outside the Parliamentary Triangle. The national interest in Canberra goes beyond the Triangle.
The functioning of Canberra as the national capital requires attention to transport and the arterial roads. The feel of Canberra as a unique city and national capital with national institutions requires respect for the open-space system between the townships; respect for the principle of not building on the hills; respect for vistas to the hills; a sense of proportion in building sizes.
Without a national planning function in a national body, the pressures by developers will undermine these principles which make Canberra unique. We have seen the unsavoury influence of developers on the NSW Government.
The development lobby wants Canberra to be like any other city. It has already had too much of a say. The more employment and floor area in the centre of a city, the great the profits and the greater inconvenience to the population. Civic has been targeted for more intense development at the expense of sound decentralisation policies. The vista to Mount Ainslie from Civic Square has been needlessly wreacked by a shopping mall of no architectural merit.
If anything, the national role should be greater in Canberra, not less.
This time, though, the ACT Government will not be applauding the diminution of the role of the NCA, as happened a decade ago. In those days the ACT Government thought its coffers would benefit. That is not true now. This is because the Feds did not only cut the NCA’s functions and budget (by $3.5 million), it also cut by $46.5 million federal spending on the upgrade of Constitution Avenue – part of the Griffin legacy plan. And other cuts are threatened.
That was a national project and should have remained so. The ACT Government must now fear that it – its ratepayers and taxpayers – will have to pick up the tab because it will have to be upgraded to bear future traffic.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was optimistic verging on naïve to imagine that just because we have nine Labor governments there would be no blame game and buck passing once he wielded the federal axe.
The buck passing may be more polite, but it will happen.
Maybe I was uncharitable to Hargreaves and Chief Minister Jon Stanhope in suggesting their eyesore carpark was a bungle. Perhaps it was a deliberate ploy to show we need an NCA with a national role and a reasonable Budget to build in Canberra. Certainly the NCA shrugged its shoulders at it hoping that it would illustrate to federal MPs and others the folly of a federal planning withdrawal.
Whether that is the case or not, the ACT Government is so miffed at the Constitution Avenue decision that it is not going to just cop it sweet in the interests of Labor harmony.
It has always been the case in the Australian federation that the federal-state divide is blind to political complexion.
Expect a bit of return fire from Stanhope. I can think of at least one cannon he can fire – the Commonwealth Grants Commission. This is the body that adjusts the formula of Commonwealth grants to the states and territories. Tasmania gets more per head because it suffers from being an island; Victoria less because has not large distances and Queensland more because it does have them, and so on.
Please, Commissioner, the ACT will argue, we are now suffering even greater disability in our state-level administration than in the past because we have to house the national capital here. No other state or territory has that disability. The “national-capital” disability has always been available, but since the war on terror and the building of greater defence and police bureaucracies, particularly along and at the end of Constitutional Avenue, the ACT is facing a large road bill and so should get a higher grant from the Commonwealth – say $46.5 million.
With any luck the threat of such a buck-pass will be enough for the Feds to resume their proper responsibility for Canberra.