Page 2032 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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definition of neighbourhood school is "the last remaining public school open nearest to where you happen to live".
Mr Collaery: I also mentioned Stretton's book to you, too. So give me the credit for that.
MR CONNOLLY: Indeed, Mr Collaery; in your absence I did, in fact, say that I was sure that you had some years ago, like myself, read Stretton's book and it was influential on the way you look at urban planning. The point to remember about Stretton's book and the point that repays study is that careful analysis and the demonstration of the way the neighbourhood school concept is central to the development of the community. You establish the school, you establish the recreational and sporting facilities around it, you establish the local shops nearby, you establish the community around it, it is all either within walking distance or a short ride on public transport. It develops a new community.
Ms Follett has demonstrated time and again in this Assembly what has happened in some of the inner north suburbs where a school has been closed. You will no doubt say, "That school was closed under the Federal Labor Government and we are not accountable for that Government". It is true that five schools were closed, but you are going to close 25, and we can now see what has happened when those schools were closed. We can see what has happened to Downer. We can see how Stretton's theory of the Canberra community is borne out in practice. While that school was operating, that community was functioning, alive and vigorous, along the lines described by Professor Stretton.
Once the school is closed, the community withers; the commercial centre that is based on the school fades away; the community ceases to exist in the sense of a vigorous neighbourhood community that was Stretton's ideal for suburban planning. Instead, there is the danger that the community will slip, as Stretton described, into the dreariness of a dormitory suburb - the affliction of urban planning, or bad planning, in the major metropolitan capitals. Is this what the ACT is to turn into? This is our concern and this is what we mean by the destruction of the fabric of society in Canberra - the abandonment of neighbourhood schools which are central to vigorous, lively urban communities in the suburbs and the turning of the those communities, by the destruction of the neighbourhood school concept, into mere dormitory suburbs. Hopefully, while urban green spaces remain, they will not be dreary dormitory suburbs - but perhaps they will be sold off, too.
Urban green space is the other crucial issue to this destruction of the fabric of the Canberra community. As we have said and continue to say, it is not just shutting schools down, it is not just the deprivation of educational opportunities that we are concerned about; it is the destruction of the urban green space and this terrifying prospect of flogging it off for urban infill and development.
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