Page 4201 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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The questions that face urban planners today are quite different from the concerns of designers such as Walter Burley Griffin. Do you think I could be protected from the rabble on the other side, please, Mr Deputy Speaker.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: When they get too unruly and you need protection, I will give it to you. Continue, Mrs Grassby.
Mr Collaery: The hoi polloi.
Mr Jensen: We do not mind being called the hoi polloi.
MRS GRASSBY: No, no; "hoi polloi" is all right. Mr Bill Wood went to a hoi polloi school. "Rabble" is different. You have to get that right.
Mr Collaery: Did he? In Poland?
MRS GRASSBY: Yes, he went to a hoi polloi school. The questions that face urban planners today are quite different from the concerns of designers such as Walter Burley Griffin. When we consider such vital questions as access to the new suburbs, we must always be willing to learn from past mistakes and ensure that future generations do not suffer from our shortsightedness. Mr Deputy Speaker, Canberra in the 1990s is a vastly different place from the Canberra of the 1950s. I came here in 1969. It is a different place from that of the 1960s. One only has to look at the planning of Gungahlin to see that. Needless to say, Canberra in the future will be a very different place from today, and that is what we have to keep in mind. We must remember that social justice and equal access for all our citizens are prime objectives of Labor policy. All Canberrans must have equal access to affordable housing, community facilities and public transport.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am proud to be a member of the Follett Labor Government and to be associated with the Land (Planning and Environment) Bill because this is the Government that has consulted with the people. This is the Government that has asked the people what they want, has asked the people to work with it and the planners and to talk to them. The people opposite forgot that the people have a say in this city. They will find this out at the next election. It will be well told to them. The people in Canberra will tell them this. They want Canberra left the way it is. If it is to be changed, it is to be changed in the way that it already is. It is to be built according to the beautiful design that it is - a garden city.
I have met many an ambassador who, after being here for about three or four months, has said, "I thought, when I was coming here and not going to Sydney or Melbourne, that I would not like it, but after being to Sydney and Melbourne I realise what a beautiful city I live in. Five minutes and you are out in the bush. A few minutes and you are up in the mountains. You have the beautiful green spaces and wide roads - a well planned city".
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