Page 2839 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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It is not real hard. If we all walk across the road now, and we could safely walk across the road because there is not much traffic on London Circuit at any time, we could travel across six or seven different sorts of pavers. You could almost do a sort of David Attenborough: “Yes, we are here with the pre-NCDC pavers, then a different shade of grey pavers, then the NCA pavers and then the ACTPLA pavers.” And on it goes.
When we got to City Walk and Garema Place, you would find very few people walking in Garema Place or on City Walk. That is a shame. At the heart of great cities are CBDs, and at the heart of CBDs are people. This city lacks a genuine CBD, and it lacks the people, the density and the activity to be recognised as a great city. That is a shame. After 13 years, that rests well and truly at the feet of the Labor Party and their allies the Greens.
Perhaps it is time for a history lesson; history is always good. I would like to read from Urban renaissance: Canberra: A sustainable future, produced by the OECD in 2002. What does it say Canberra needs? It entirely supports Mr Coe’s argument. It says:
The synergy between a vital town city centre and the prosperity of the city as a whole is widely recognised. The importance of Civic was apparent in original hierarchical town centre structure. The question is how the core, Civic, can be strengthened to produce a more sustainable overall outcome. This is consistent with the logic of territorial development based on efficient land use and the valorisation of the strengths and assets of places, and on strategies to release their potential. Strategies for Civic should reaffirm Civic as Canberra’s pre-eminent business centre; allow and encourage the widest possible range of uses; encourage innovative design solutions; develop an ACT cultural identity; link Canberra more positively to an enriched range of nearby national capital uses; build on the existing asset base; reduce the dependence on the car; and encourage increased use of public transport.
And clearly it should be done overtly. It should not be done covertly or by stealth, as this government does in their obsession with and hatred of the car.
Canberra is probably unique in the world in the way it was constructed. When it was constructed, primarily in the 1960s, it was built to accommodate the automobile. As a consequence of that, we have the highest participation in cultural activities, the highest participation in organised sporting activities, and the highest participation in volunteering. We have a city where people go and do things that would take you days in Sydney or Melbourne, things that we manage to get done in our lunchtime or in an afternoon. It allows us to be more active participants in our children’s school life; it allows us to be more active participants in each other’s cultural, social and personal lives.
There are, unfortunately for those opposite, some advantages for the car. It is shown in the way the ACT is. Churchill said that first we shape buildings and then buildings shape us. I think the same can be said of Canberra. First we shaped Canberra, and Canberra has shaped its residents in the way they participate. If there is one thing that
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