Page 126 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 February 2018
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It is necessary, of course, to balance a range of competing priorities. Ms Le Couteur in her presentation touched on one of the tensions: there are those who view urban renewal and any proposition put forward by a developer as being against the community interest. Even with developments that have unanimous support in this place, we will still find members of the community who believe that everyone in this place has sold out to the developers. We all know that; we have all experienced those conversations in this place.
Equally, I have also participated in and heard discussions where the requirements that certain individuals in the community would seek to place on development render it completely uneconomic, and absolutely ensure that nothing will ever happen. That is possibly their intent; in most instances I think it just stems from a lack of understanding of what is necessary in order to achieve an urban renewal outcome and for a development to proceed.
There is a historic issue that relates to a previous form of development in this city pre self-government, when occasionally it rained money from the commonwealth government. Ian Warden has written quite eloquently about this particular phenomenon. I think he referred to it as “Hodgmania”. Certainly, the reference there was to, as he described him, the “squire of Canberra”, the late Michael Hodgman, who was a Tasmanian federal MP, who, for a time, was the federal territories minister. So he was, as Mr Warden so eloquently described him, seen as the “squire of Canberra”, the one who would, on occasion, sprinkle some gold dust into a particular area. The nostalgia for this era amongst a certain generation of Canberrans is undoubtedly there and will remain for the rest of their lives.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no point in trying to argue with those people as to whether or not the pre or post self-government era is better for livability in Canberra. I think that debate has been had ad nauseam. But I did note in Ms Le Couteur’s presentation this morning the acknowledgement that not everything that was done by the National Capital Development Commission, as it was then, in the era pre self-government has stood the test of time as good urban planning.
Clearly, not every decision that has been made in the post self-government era over the last 30 years, or decisions that will be made in the future, with the benefit of hindsight in 50 years time, will be absolutely spot on. The nature of these issues is that we cannot accurately forecast everything that might happen in the future. But what we can do is put some contemporary planning principles, urban development principles and economic reality at the forefront of our approach to urban renewal, which is exactly what the government is seeking to do through the approach that my colleagues have outlined this morning.
The amendment that I will move to Ms Le Couteur’s motion is quite detailed. Members can read it for themselves. I will not read out every element of it. But it is important to note that there is a very positive future not only for Canberra’s CBD but for each of the town centres.
I want to conclude my remarks today by making one observation about something that I think is important; that is, each of the town centres and each of the areas within the
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