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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3745 ..

I have spoken before in this place about a study by the University of Western Australia that showed that people living in streets with no footpaths are 62 per cent more likely to be obese. It is a shame that many of Canberra’s recent suburbs have had narrow streets with no footpaths. Because we are trying to fit in as many houses as possible in these developments, footpaths are only being built on arterial roads and this has a major impact on health. Also, because we have narrow streets we are hearing of problems in relation to buses being able to travel down these streets.

So if we do improve Canberra’s urban environment and the look of the city, few people will be able to appreciate it. They will be zooming past in their cars because they cannot walk or catch public transport to those centres where we are looking at rejuvenating our public environment. I am glad to see that the government is still supportive of the way to go program, which encourages people to leave their cars at home and make more trips to school, work or shops or to visit friends by walking or by cycling, but we need to get the fundamentals right. That is, if it is not pleasant to walk or to cycle, if people are not doing that through a welcoming urban environment, people simply will not do it. So, there is some importance in the debate put forward through this matter of public importance but we need to keep a realistic focus on what we are trying to achieve here and the benefits that we already have by living in a city like Canberra.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (5.13): It is interesting to witness the continuing attacks by the Liberal Party on Canberra, on our home, the place we live. Canberra is a beautiful city—one of the most beautiful cities, if not the most beautiful city, in the world. I think that is the view of almost everybody who lives here. It continues to surprise me that for the sake of a political argument, for the making of a political point, the Liberal Party in Canberra continues and continuously talks down Canberra as the wonderful place it is. I have lived here now for 35 years. I will almost certainly live for the rest of my life here. I regard it without a doubt, without even having to think about it, as the ideal place in which to live. It is a wonderful city, not just for who and what we are, but for what we look like and for the ambience, look and amenity of the place.

Canberra the bush capital is something that every Canberran, or anybody who becomes a Canberran, lives and looks for. Certainly we have issues from time to time such as droughts. Anybody shaking their head or being concerned or feeling a little bit sad or blue about the urban environment or the look of the city, as the motion addresses it, is probably expressing some frustration, and even a tinge of sadness, that we have now entered a period that might be described as the worst drought recorded since the limestone plains were settled by European settlers nearly 180 or so years ago. From records, we are now on the verge or the cusp of entering a drier, or longer or more debilitating, drought than the drought of 1942, which until now was regarded as the worst drought that the ACT had experienced. That was 62 years ago.

The fact that we are in the grip of the worst drought, the lowest rainfall that the territory has experienced or suffered for 62 years at least—if not since European settlement of this part of Australia—will have some bearing on and some implications for the look of the city. It certainly has had some implications for the look of my home and my garden. It is certainly the reason my front lawn is dead and there is essentially more dust than grass—although, after the 20 millimetres or so that we have had in August, there is a little green tinge. So it is starting to spark up. The season is turning, the days are warming. Spring is

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