Page 1814 - Week 05 - Thursday, 2 April 2009
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1911. Descendants of those early families remain in the district and many of the original buildings are still standing.
Pialligo was an early site of the Aboriginal campsites where the Indigenous people hunted on the plains and fished the Molonglo River. From 1825 Pialligo became home to white settlers, who grazed sheep and cattle and planted vegetable gardens and orchards. Pialligo’s role as a nursery, garden and farm is intimately tied to the early history of the area and the subsequent growth of Canberra. Its traditions are still carried on today with the supply of fresh produce in addition to seedlings and plants which green our city.
In 1862 Tharwa, where the road to Kiandra crossed the Murrumbidgee, became the first place within the present boundaries of the ACT to be proclaimed a township.
There are many of us in this place who can remember great family outings spent travelling to the rural villages within the territory, having picnics and visiting arts and craft shops, spending part of our wages or our pocket money on trinkets, enjoying the local food and bringing home treats prepared by the locals.
Sadly, those days are a thing of the past and not just because we are getting older. These villages are being left behind because a large part of our planning and policy framework for development in the ACT focuses on the urban areas of the city and leaves little room for villages. Let me be clear that we are not saying that we should neglect the urban areas. They are obviously a key part of what Canberra is today. However, this development should not be done in isolation or at the expense of regions beyond the urban fringe, in particular historic rural villages, which now need the support of the city to survive.
They say every cloud has a silver lining and the current economic climate may just present the opportunity to reinvigorate these rural villages and see the local tourism dollar invested across our territory as much as possible, ensuring the financial returns are available for all to share. As Canberra residents tighten their belts, they will be looking for short-term, low-budget breaks from the city, and day trips to these villages for lunch, shopping or the use of walking trails and picnic areas provide these opportunities.
A strategic plan developed in consultation with the enthusiastic village community groups, who often make sound representations to members in this place about issues affecting the future of their communities, would go a long way to re-establishing the link from urban to rural areas, contribute to the financial viability of the rural villages and ensure that money spent by local and interstate visitors remains in the ACT.
I note that in the Canberra spatial plan released in 2004 one of the key initiatives was:
The non-urban areas that form the rural setting of the city (outside of nature conservation areas) will be primarily used for sustainable agriculture (including forestry west of the Murrumbidgee River). Historical rural settlements form part of the rural setting
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