Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is just foresight, Senator Faulkner. I have to say, though, that I was struck by the fact that, in Senator Forshaw’s speech—in which he addressed bills which are about the future and about the plans of this government for the next 2½ to three years—he spoke almost entirely about the past. What that suggests to me is how wafer-thin the vision of this government actually is—how much you need to talk about the past because what you have in store for the future is not really clear even to you at this point in time. What you as a government are laying on the table at the moment is a large succession of fairly thin platitudes and motherhood statements about where you want to go, in a very impressionistic sense, but the detail is not really much at hand at this stage.

In fact, the only detail which is at hand at this stage—to everyone’s great regret, I have to say—is the detail of the many cuts which this government is making, entirely contrary to the impression created before the election that many of the initiatives of the former Howard government would be retained and built upon. That is very different to what is actually happening in that they are, in fact, being cut. This government’s approach to a large number of important projects which had built and enriched the Australian community has been quite a horrendous one. I want to talk today particularly about one project which represents the future of this city, and that is the Griffin Legacy, the plan for the revitalisation of a large and important part of the Parliamentary Triangle.

We have heard announced by this government a succession of cuts to a number of areas, particularly a direct and violent attack on the infrastructure, and investment in the Public Service, in this city. Included in these cuts—some $643 million in savings—is a planned reversal by the government of a number of decisions made by the former government with respect to the planning of Canberra. One of those was the decision, overseen by the National Capital Authority and supported by the Australian government—and, I thought at the time, by the then Labor opposition—to establish the Griffin Legacy, which was embodied in publications like this one here by the National Capital Authority, outlining a plan to complete the vision for Canberra outlined by Walter Burley Griffin almost a century ago.

In May 2007 the former government announced that it would provide more than $70 million over four years to fund the redevelopment of Constitution Avenue and the replacement of the Russell roundabout as part of that plan. These works were several years in the planning, having grown out of the National Capital Authority’s 2004 review of the Walter Burley Griffin plan for Canberra. This review examined how much of Griffin’s original vision had already been accomplished and what was yet to be fulfilled.

Constitution Avenue was identified as a key part of the Griffin plan which remained incomplete. Over several years, the NCA worked with architectural and town planning experts to put together a design which was faithful to Griffin’s original vision but met the city’s contemporary needs. Because the former coalition government had the foresight to recognise the significance of this project, those funds were committed. But with a single stroke of the pen the new government dashed this vision and, with it, years of painstaking work. On 8 February the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Mr Tanner, announced that $46.5 million would be slashed from the project as part of the government’s round of spending cuts. Just enough money would be allocated to develop the Russell roundabout—which, no doubt, the minister would use on his way to the airport—but not a cent more. The grand plans for the development of Constitution Avenue would be shelved indefinitely and with them any sense of vision for our nation’s capital.

I would like to describe, for the benefit of those philistines in the government who make these kinds of decisions, exactly what this $46 million cut will mean to the continuing development of the national capital. Currently, Constitution Avenue is a potholed, single-lane road which runs from City Hill in Civic out to the Defence hub at the top of Russell, passing through the heritage suburbs of Campbell and Reid. In the mornings and evenings overflow traffic from Parkes Way sits bumper to bumper along its entire length, spewing fumes into the old oak trees which line it. On one side, dirt car parks overflow with commuters from Canberra’s outer suburbs, creating a dusty jumble of bikes and cars. On the other side, the fading 1960s architecture of the Canberra Institute of Technology jars against the elegant silhouette of St John’s Church at Reid, Canberra’s oldest church. As the cars inch up the hill towards Russell, their drivers are tantalised with a brief glimpse up Anzac Parade, towards the solemn architecture of the War Memorial, and down the boulevard across Lake Burley Griffin to Parliament House beyond. But upon crossing Anzac Parade they are again surrounded by car parks, empty lots, and chain link fences all the way to Defence.

Contrast this reality with the vision laid down by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin in their original plan for Canberra, which was faithfully developed by the National Capital Authority through its Griffin Legacy project. Griffin envisaged Constitution Avenue as the third arm of the parliamentary triangle, combining with Kings Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue to link the city centre with the seat of government. He drew Constitution Avenue as a grand boulevard, wide enough for vehicle and pedestrian traffic, lined with shady trees, and dotted with cafes, shops and cultural facilities. Cars would be ferried quickly away from the city by the overpass at the Russell roundabout, clearing Constitution Avenue of heavy traffic. As with the great boulevards of Europe, the avenue would become a destination—a place for people to meet, socialise, live and work.

Griffin intended Constitution Avenue to be Canberra’s vibrant city heart—the heart which visitors to Canberra, some members of this parliament amongst them, so often claim is missing. But thanks to the scorched-earth budgetary approach of this government, Griffin’s vision will not now see fulfilment. Short-term penny pinching has triumphed over strategic vision. In pointing out what a great loss this really is I would like to quote from the Australian Planning Institute, which in 1955 stated:

Griffin’s plan of 1912 won the international competition for the design of the Federal Capital City of Australia because it embodied, above all others, a central idea in civic design which would express in the finest possible way the heart of the new nation. The idea was derived from a ... deep sympathy with the national and aesthetic aspirations of the founders of the Commonwealth ... half a century of planning experience since can add nothing to its quality.

What the institute has so neatly captured in these few lines is the fact that Griffin’s plan for Canberra was about much more than just streets and roundabouts, bridges and lakes. It was about building a city which expressed through its design the best characteristics of Australian democracy—openness, egalitarianism, and freedom of communication and movement. In short, it was about building an ideal city.

Now, of course, something like that does not necessarily come cheap. But having invested as much money as this nation has in Griffin’s vision since 1927—not just in the last 10 years—surely it is worth protecting that investment. Surely we cannot just turn around one day and say: ‘Well, we’ve finished the national capital. The work’s done; the job’s done; what’s next?’ The work of building a truly great city is ongoing.

Obviously this government does not think so. Apparently clawing back financial savings is more important, no matter what the cost to our national city’s development might be. It is worth pointing out that this investment by the Commonwealth was not the only money required to make the Griffin Legacy plan come to fruition. It was designed to leverage a very large amount of private sector investment, as well, in the national capital. That is investment which now cannot take place. That augurs very badly for the financial future of this city in the next few years.

The government has also decided to compound this lack of vision by silencing the keepers of the legacy, the National Capital Authority, by cutting deeply into its budget and staff resources. There is a debate to be had about the role of the NCA, and about its relationship with the ACT’s own planning bodies. That is a debate which is going to take place in an inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, in which I will enjoy participating.

But the fact remains that the government has put the cart before the horse by ripping out a significant proportion of the NCA’s funding and staff without any analysis whatsoever of the agency’s capacity to bear this. Until this parliament decides otherwise through legislation, the NCA has a statutory responsibility to protect and promote Griffin’s vision for Canberra, yet it is hamstrung in that task by the loss of significant funding and 33 of its 89 staff.

That demonstrates once again, and powerfully, that this government simply has no vision. This is a government which is too busy counting its pennies to think and plan for the future. It is a government which is needlessly ripping money out of very valuable projects, like the project on Constitution Avenue, to create the illusion of fiscal toughness.

I do not object to the passage of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2007-2008 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2007-2008; I do object to the complete lack of vision displayed by a government which is prepared to cut funding for short-term political gain at the expense of long-term visionary planning. Our nation’s capital would not be the international marvel that it is today if it were not for successive governments having seen fit to invest in Walter Burley Griffin’s vision. I think the new government should seriously consider whether it wishes to be known as the one government—in a long succession of Australian governments of both political persuasions—which lacked the vision and the foresight to invest in a decent long-term plan for the national capital.