Page 2840 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 17 September 2014
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people value about living in Canberra, it is the ability to participate. And if there is one thing that visitors like about Canberra it is easy access. That is not to say that we do not do more. That is what Mr Coe’s op ed says: let us have a think about how we make more of that which we have got. If you look at the last 13 years, it is abject failure.
We had a dinner recently with Larry Oltmanns, one of the great planners, designers and architects of the world. I said to him, “What do you think about City Hill?” I said, “It is like our Central Park.” He said: “Well, you are wrong. The centre of New York is Manhattan and Broadway. It is Wall Street. It is where people are, where there is activity, where things happen on the street.” He said: “Central Park is off to the side; it is not central. You cannot even reach your central park; it is a dead end. And you have got a bypass which whips through the city and carves the city in half.”
That is why City Walk is important. When we did work on City Walk, it was to link the east and west along the walkway that was easily accessible. For all the things that those opposite have quoted, the majority are the good things done by the private sector. They are always very keen to take credit for having worked in conjunction with the private sector, but if you talk to the private sector on most of those projects they say they were far more costly than they should have been and they were held up for years because we have got a government that does not get it. They prove they do not get it today by not agreeing to this motion.
Let us continue the history lesson. The OECD report came out in 2002. What did we get in response to that from Mr Corbell in 2005? We got City Hill: A concept for the future. Fantastic! We have finally got a plan from the government on City Hill. If you go to page 6 in City Hill, there are about 16 identifiable initiatives. Madam Assistant Speaker, you will be shocked. None of them have occurred. Nine years later, not a single initiative here has occurred. That is a shame, because some of them are quite worthy. They do talk about convention centres. They actually talk about a new Legislative Assembly. Imagine that! They talk about a new Supreme Court, which has not happened. They talk about a hotel development with public car parking; it has not happened. They talk about a Civic heritage precinct; it has not happened. They talk about Northbourne Avenue realignment; it has not happened. They talk about a city gateway; it has not happened.
That is the problem. This is the glossy government. This is the glossy government that produces documents but never delivers. We know they do not deliver because earlier this year they tabled a report, the city plan, and said they were going to get on with it. Indeed, it was the advice to the Chief Minister from all the participants. We see it on page 5:
One of the strongest messages we heard was “just get on with it”—people want to see change.
Yes, they do. They want a city heart that works. At the heart of the city heart is Garema Place. Accessing Garema Place is about City Walk; hence Mr Coe’s motion. But of course the government does not want that to happen.
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