Page 3497 - Week 10 - Thursday, 20 October 2022
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to recognise the contributions of individuals and community groups. Awards for this annual event included the following: Community Leader of the Year, Community Organisation of the Year, the public health emergency award, African Business of the Year, African Author of the Year, the Academic and Professional Excellence Award, Volunteer of the Year, Afrocentric Entertainer of the Year, the Young African Australian Leader Award, the African Australian Diaspora of the Year Award, and the Friend of Africa Award.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the recipients of each award as well as all those who were nominated. Trophies for an associated soccer tournament were also announced near the end of the evening, and I likewise congratulate the winners of that. Someday I hope to visit Africa. In the meantime I am grateful for my many good friends from the African community here and for each opportunity I get to enjoy their culture and spend time with them especially on the dancefloor. I look forward to the next occasion.
Canberra Urban and Regional Futures
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (6.10): Today I wanted to take this opportunity in the Assembly to acknowledge the Canberra Urban and Regional Futures forum, commonly known as CURF as its work comes to a close after many productive years.
In the field of climate action, resilience and a sustainable future for cities and their hinterlands, it is so important to create opportunities for connection, inspiration, and the sharing of ideas. CURF has made significant achievements in these areas providing a model for continuing work by other organisations with similar aims. From its beginnings in 2010 CURF has recognised the importance of breaking down information silos and bringing people together from disparate areas such as government, academia, business, agriculture, and the community. It was an important partnership between the University of Canberra, the Australian National University, the ACT government, and the federal government.
We should be proud that CURF came into being in Canberra as its founders realised our city offers a combination of attributes that make it a perfect laboratory for this kind of activity. Canberra has a high level of planning, it is growing rapidly and it has a government and population with a high interest in building an urban environment that will stand up to the changing future. Canberra has become a place that many other jurisdictions have turned to for ideas and CURF has played an important role in this. CURF began with eight different yet overlapping research themes; climate change and environment, infrastructure, transport in urban form, sustainable regions, healthy communities, social and cultural heritage, economic development, coastal and marine planning, and policy governance and institutions. Through seminars, workshops and forums, as well as engagement at the regional, national and international levels, and work with students at the University of Canberra, they were able to explore a wide range of topics and ideas, including bushfire preparation and resilience, moving away from car dependency, increasing urban density without compromising amenity, and much more.
Ideas generated through CURF became an important input to the development of Canberra’s Living Infrastructure Plan, contributed to plans for Tuggeranong’s urban
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