Page 1031 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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Members may recall in June of last year an item on Prime television dealing with concern by residents in a street in Macarthur about the policy of tree planting in their street. The residents of that street were very concerned about the policy of planting particular types of eucalyptus trees because they felt that these trees were inappropriate for their street. They felt that there were a variety of problems with those trees and they resented fairly bitterly the fact that there had been no consultation between them and the developer of that part of the suburb on the sorts of trees that ought to go into that streetscape.
I was concerned about these comments and I wrote to one of the people in that street, who wrote back to me and gave me details of the problems they had encountered. In particular, this resident outlined a great many of the problems with eucalyptus trees as she saw them in that streetscape. To diverge for one moment, I think members would acknowledge that in many respects eucalyptus trees present some problems relating to providing heat in winter and offering shelter for houses in summer. Solar design is not very compatible, for example, with gum trees. Other people complain about the fact that gum trees shed their bark and drop sap and present a problem for cars if they are parked underneath them. Obviously, there are also aesthetic considerations about those sorts of trees.
The point that needs to be made is not so much that we do or do not favour or have some views about eucalyptus trees but that we should acknowledge the basic principle that people who live in a particular residential street in Canberra, who have moved into that street as the first occupiers of houses in the street, who are there at the time trees are to be planted as part of the streetscape, ought to have some say on, some right to contribute to, the policy that forms the basis of that streetscape. Obviously not all new developments will fall within this category. As Ms Szuty has pointed out to me, very often when people move into new houses in developed suburbs they find that the trees have already been planted. I gather that that is an increasingly frequent occurrence. But it is still the case that sometimes trees have not been planted and residents in those circumstances, particularly for a tree planted directly outside their home, ought to have some capacity to put forward a point of view about what kind of tree, what kind of vegetation, is planted in front of their homes and in their streets.
It follows, of course, that if people are not consulted, if people do not have the capacity to make some kind of contribution, to have some say in what is going on, their willingness to contribute to the upkeep of those trees or shrubs is greatly diminished. I have had anecdotal suggestions, for example, that in the street concerned in Tuggeranong there has been a problem with the trees planted not being tended and having died. That will be a pretty well inevitable consequence where people are not asked about what they want. I accept that there are problems with giving people what they want. It is impossible to say, "You may choose the tree you wish. If you want a Moreton Bay fig, yes, you can have that, and the next person can have a red gum, and the next person can have a pine tree". That is obviously not going to work. I think there is some evidence, particularly in smaller streets, that the residents like to be able to get together and discuss these things, and they may well have an approach that is common in that street and that might develop a pattern the developer can exploit when he or she wishes to proceed with the planting of trees.
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