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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3744 ..

It was interesting when I went to a lunchtime function at Regatta Point along with the Treasurer. I walked past Floriade in its formative times and wondered whether people would want to come to Floriade and see a green Commonwealth Park when the rest of the city is an urban desert. We cannot allow this city to become an urban desert because this government has not planned for our water security.

MS DUNDAS (5.08): I want to return to the original topic that has been put before us in this matter of public importance—the deterioration of Canberra’s urban environment and the look of the city. We should agree that Canberra is a beautiful city. It is a great city. It is one that we are all proud to call our home. It is quite a good example of what could be done with a planned city. Of course, we all agree some things have not gone as well as they should, that improvements and repairs can be made. But to compare Canberra to a third world country is really drawing quite a long bow.

Yes, the Belconnen bus interchange is unsightly and in need of repair, but at least we have a bus interchange. The leafy entrance and garden beds around Civic are the envy of all those cities in third world countries that are suffering dire ongoing drought and a genuine lack of water. When I look out the window of my office I see a pleasant mall, a fantastic potential urban landscape, not a throng of lepers and a haze of pollution. Canberra does not have shantytowns. So we see public art and the construction of new units, not sweatshop factories or shantytowns. So that was a rather long bow to take when we talk about the deterioration of Canberra’s urban environment and the look of the city. We need to remember how lucky we are to live in a beautiful country like this.

However, the debate then talked about the need to clean up graffiti. Despite the reforms that were passed just in the past few months in this place, it seems that some members still remain unsatisfied with what we are doing to tackle graffiti. Perhaps if we had a 24-hour curfew on young people Mr Cornwell would be finally satisfied, but then we would not have the vibrant culture that so many in Canberra appreciate. In the past fortnight the Assembly also passed new laws in relation to litter. At that time I commented on the government’s lack of action in meeting the no waste by 2010 targets. Not only is the ACT’s no waste program budget a small amount of the entire budget, but its budget has been static and will remain static for the next three years. So we get plenty of rhetoric and flash promotion but little action to divert our waste away from the waste stream.

We should also be talking about public art and street sculptures that we have in our town centres. Civic is well catered for but many of our other local shopping centres and town centres are not as well catered for in public art. So just as we need more employment and better public transport for our town centres, we need to make our town centres more beautiful, more full of those things that people flock to the city for. They should not be left behind when we talk about improving our city in a whole range of different ways. The unique model that is Burley Griffin’s legacy can only be enhanced if we beautify all of our town centres—from those major arterial centres down to our suburban shopping centres where the community congregates.

The other thing that should be focused on in relation to our urban environment is access to public space. Our public space is often hard to access for pedestrians and those cycling. We seem still to be stuck in a planning mode that is solely geared towards transport by car. It is not only short-sighted but it also has long-term health impacts.

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