This week the ACT government revealed plans for a large car park close to the city centre, at the edge of Lake Burley Griffin. This is not likely to enhance Canberra’s appeal, either as a tourist destination or a place to live. This is just typical of the mis-guided policies of the Stanhope government. For a Labor bunch, they seem to be following very closely in the footsteps of previous ACT Liberal regimes.
Of course, you will need lots of parking if you have over-loaded Civic with offices and shops and failed to provide for public transport. (Tick that box) Other dysfunctional policy orientations that are turning Canberra into lego-land include:
Gradual abandonment of the principles that created Canberra as an early successful example of a ‘garden city’, a concept that was continued well into the 1970s through the work of Weston and other enlightened planners.
A retreat from local services, either schools or shops or petrol or libraries, in favour of ‘superschools’ and centralised amenities.
Gnawing away at any committment to meaningful or accountable public consultation. The LAPACs, or local area planning and advisory committees, are long gone. Underfunded community councils are left to do much unpaid work in liaisisng between government and citizens. Legal changes to planning legislation, for example, will limit the access of community groups and individuals to Administrative Appeals Tribunal processes.
Isn’t it ironic that Greens member Deb Fosky offered an example from Brazil of communities being offered the opportunity to prioritise how a modest amount (say $1 m for Canberrans) should be spent. At a recent meeting of a community council, a long list of items that had been submitted to the ACT gov for action had been mostly ignored.
Determined disposal of public assets, such as schools, ovals, open spaces. Developers have the government’s ear and its blessing, especially for mega projects such as the redevelopment of Capital Hill into yet another shopping precinct. They don’t ‘get it’ that a piazza is inherently small, discrete, and embodies low key human scale facilities. Would the occasional fountain surrounded by greenery be too much to ask?
These sins all get a tick in the box, because the Stanhope government looks, acts, smells, quacks and is otherwise indistinguishable from a Liberal duck. Gone are any holistic approaches to planning, such as retention of local community sensibility and cohesion. (Well, that might lead to democratic uprising and a demand for a greater say in decision making.)
On SBS’s Insight the other night, strong arguments were being made by planner Peter Newman and the Western Australian Ministor for Planning, among others, for integrated planning that takes into account demographic change, the coming of peak oil, and climate change. So WA has sensibly invested in a train line that is both faster and cheaper for commuters than car travel.
The ACT, on the other hand, is chasing the Los Angeles of the 1950s, with bigger and less functional freeways, huge and growing shopping centres and less available local services, such as libraries. A trip to Belconnen now involves convoluted road changes that remind me of computer games, which I also can’t figure out. The scars on the landscape make Canberra so much more boring than it used to be.
And the planned massive development of Molonglo will involve damming the river, damage to riparian environments, and is being done without adequate planning for either bicycles, public transport, or local services. My area of Weston Creek is doomed to become more intense with traffic and pollution. Ah, but a water feature will push up the prices for the blocks of land, and there are sure to be lots of takers.
Such a new cluster of suburbs, if needed at all, should surely be done as an eco-village, and adhere to the highest 7 star resource standards. Yet rumour has it that Stanhope is going to knock back the solar feed in tarriff, which is due to be tabled shortly. This could put Canberra on a par with Germany and even South Australia, two jurisdictions that have seen fit to encourage solar electricity.
There are clear equity concerns with this, as the rich should not be subsidised by those who can’t afford to put panels on their rooves. But getting everybody in on the act, by using some of the ACT (or federal) surplus to reduce the payback time, would make better sense. All the warnings are that climate change is now urgent, so it is time to find equitable policy setting that take everyone forward, not just the eco-elite.
Just one example of bad planning and project management: the excellent bicycle path into Civic from Weston Creek, a distance of at least 12 km, goes over a wooden bridge near Scrivener Dam. This bridge is now being rebuilt, fair enough. I have rattled over it many times and it looked rather splintery. However, they are going to take 3 months to do this. Taking this bridge out effectively removes all possibility of bicycle commuting into Civic from my part of the city. Any alternative routes involve either going way out of the way or over the parkway where you place your life at risk.
Surely a small wooden bridge could be rebuilt in a matter of weeks, rather than months?
Returing to the issue of the car park at the lake’s edge: at least it will deter people from finding Canberra a lovely place to move to, despite the many millions the Stanhope mob has spent on that campaign. Without its relaxed natural beauty, Canberra is just another city. No wonder one sees graffiti saying ‘John Hopeless’.
February 28, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Canberra is becoming a Capital Mess
February 26, 2008 | Graham
Garnaut super-wedges Nelson
Everyone seems to have missed the obvious. Garnaut’s radical position on greenhouse gas reductions also radically reduces the room for Nelson to manouvre in. Now Rudd’s fairly robust position looks conservative, and the possibility of running a more conservative credible position on greenhouse has virtually disappeared.
The usual suspects will pick-up the Garnaut targets, which means that Rudd can take-up a principled ground of opposition to the alarmists on greenhouse while remaining within his undertakings at the last election.
The Garnaut committee is starting to look like a very clever, but slightly tawdry, exercise. Garnaut’s career suggests superior political skills, and an affinity for the Labor side of politics. He is also probably close to Rudd, having been his superior in the Australian embassy in China. His taking a line which helps the government should not surprise.
It certainly helps to make sense of his radical position that we must reduce our greenhouse emissions by 90% by 2050. This is based on an assertion that the effects of greenhhouse warming are accelerating, despite the fact that there is little evidence of this and it is not borne out by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. This is even stranger because he refuses to deal with any of the scientific issues in favour of deferring to the IPCC report. So on the one hand he asserts the supremacy of the IPCC, and on the other relies on un-footnoted scientific observations outside the IPCC framework, whilst claiming not to be prepared to make a call on the science.
Most analysis has been a variation on the theme that Garnaut is a problem for Rudd. This misses the point because while elite opinion might favour radical action, the public only favours the idea of it, but they want someone else to pick-up the tab. Garnaut puts Rudd squarely on their side, and whatever costs Rudd puts on Australians he can always argue that it could be much worse.
This isn’t an antipodean version of Stern, it’s a ratcheting-up of debate, and it represents much smarter politics.
February 20, 2008 | Graham
Kevin’s war on everything, including booze
Government is in the solution business, which means to be rated a success a government needs problems – no problems, nothing to solve. Rudd’s ambitious, so he’s adding problems to the list of those he inherited like inflation, but are some of the problems real?
One of his first moves was to send Labor members out to view homelessness first hand. The problem was apparently getting worse. But the figure he was quoting – 100,000 homeless – is exactly the same as it was 6 years ago.
Today we find that “Rudd takes aim at binge drinking ‘epidemic'”. The ABC puts “epidemic” in quotes, suggesting a degree of scepticism, and well might they be sceptical.
My figures on alcohol consumption are 5 years old, but let’s assume, as with homelessness, nothing much has changed. In 2003 WHO reported on the alcohol consumption of 181 countrie. Australians over the age of 15 drank 9 litres of alcohol on average that year. Sounds like a lot, but there were 31 countries that consumed more, including most OECD countries. The USA was just behind on 8.6, Canada scored 7.8 and Japan 7.6. New Zealanders drank 9.7 litres, Brits 11.8, French 11.4 and the Irish 13.7.
There seems to be a certain relationship between prosperity and alcohol consumption, and those with the lowest consumption were all Islamic. I have no idea why Uganda tops the list at 17.6.
But wait, there’s more. These figures from WHO show that in some of these countries there has been a dramatic decline over the last 38 years. In 1970 the French consumed 23.2 litres, the Italians 21.2, Spanish 16.1 and the Swiss 14.3. Those figures have declined by up to 100% and now fall in a range between 7.9 and 10.9 and suggesst that given income and culture, somewhere around 9 litres per annum per head is about where alcohol consumption is likely to sit.
Since 1961 Australia has had remarkably stable alcohol consumption. According to this WHO publication we consumed around 9 litres per head per annnum then, just like we do now. Our biggest drinking years look like they might have been in the 70s, but they were still well short of the French and comparable to Irish current consumption at around 13 litres.
All of which suggests that Rudd has a lot of work to do to prove that there is a binge drinking “epidemic” and that this isn’t just a government “make work” program.
February 20, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
You don’t need a wind sock…to know which way the wind blows
The US film industry is definitely becoming more socially and politically aware. In the past few years movies have tackled issues including the drug trade (Traffic), international arms dealing (God of War), the impotence of international help in the face of genocide (Hotel Rwanda), racism in the US (Crash), the dark underbelly of the diamond industry (Blood Diamond) and of course terrorism (Syriana, Black Hawk Down, Three Kings, etc).
All of these were main stream movies, not sure how they all did in the box office, or even if they were all of US origin, the film industry being so global. But they showed a willingness to look beneath the facade of patriotism that infects so much US culture.
Lions for Lambs has the attraction of featuring Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. All of them are wonderful actors, all of them give terrific performances, as does Michael Pena, who also did a sterling job in Crash.
The movie has relatively little ‘action’ as we understand it these days, and is almost philosophical, with 3 interwoven scenarios, a now common technique. It explores the role of the media (Streep), the responsibilities of privilege (Redford and the young students) and the stumblings of government (Cruise). And yet, I found myself wondering why Redford gave it his support, as much of it was embarassingly simplistic.
So I squirm a bit and think that maybe this level of analysis is all the public can handle, and maybe that is where the US primary contests also find their level. Yet the movie was not as soppy as Saving Private Ryan, which sidestepped any issues deeper than tribal and family loyalties.
The arrogant, affluent student reminded me of my youngest son, who knows all yet does not act. But the idealists in the movie were squandering their talents, too. I don’t want to give away the story totally, which is predictable but still moderately interesting. My own idealism is of the sort that wishes no one would ever join an army or pick up weapons, and therefore other means of dispute resolution would have to prevail.
Of course, like so much of my blather, this is ridiculous and unrealistic. But consider: I have managed to get to this stage in life without ever experiencing real violence in my life. Not at home, not at work, not on the street, not even as a wanton hippie in foreign cultures. And I have never hurt anyone physically. (Unless you count the small yapping dog I kicked long ago when it was stupid enough to come after me on a day when I’d had bad news about car repairs I couldn’t afford.)
Many readers will also attest that it is possible to live without resort to violence. This is not because I am a Good Person or have led an exemplary life. (Au contraire, my own nature is quite ferocious, and flickers erratically between manic and rage.) Rather it is a result of social consciousness, adequate and equitable standards of living, the rule of law, etc.
Most young people today are mellow and maybe soft, but that’s the trade off. As a secondary teacher, I saw little teasing or sexism in the students, and much kindness.
Back to the movie, which does try to ask the questions about how and why the US got itself into such a bind in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even mentions the money going to Saudi princes. But the answers, as in real life, are glossed over.
Like a party where the one drunk is being jollied along, the necessary questions about the violent nature of US foreign policy can’t surface. It is just too tough, because the US economy is far too dependent on the war machine.
The ‘wind sock’, which the Cruise character accuses the media of being, just fills with air and tosses about. My son thinks Obama is much more than a populist, and is just the man to take the US away from its war-mongering. After all, Obama didn’t vote for the war. Hilary, on the other hand, while generally liberal, is still another ‘wind sock’ because she will cater to the vested interests who support her. Certainly the US public seems desperate for change, and Hilary is tainted with dynastic connections.
Violence infiltrates much of US culture, at least psychologically. On visits to NY or LA, I have seen hints and warnings, but not real danger. My rellies there don’t own guns. After yet another fatal shooting in the US on campus, a Professor Kellner from UCLA identifies an ‘out of control gun culture and male rage hieightened by hypermasculinity and violence in the media.’
Kellner recommends ‘stricter gun control laws; improved campus and workplace security; better guidance and mental health care on campuses and in communities; a reconstruction of education to promote programs advocating peace and social justice; and projecting new and more constructive images of masculinity.’
This is all laudable, sensible and to me, bleedin’ obvious. What also needs saying, and the Redford character in the movie comes close but doesn’t quite say it, is that the ultra violent, Roman role of the US internationally is also a source of this rage. Several articles have highlighted the violence committed by troops after they return home. Serving in Iraq would certainly tip me over the edge.
The wind sock is blowing back towards the US. The poison it delivers abroad will continue to pollute their society, and eventually they will simply go broke.
But perhaps my son is right, and Obama can really bring about meaningful change. What do you think?
PS I forgot to hit ‘publish’ on Thursday, apologies.
February 13, 2008 | Graham
Underage Elephant?
I had to laugh at this one. I have problems with the whole concept of underage sex when the consenting parties are physically equipped to do what they do. Romeo and Juliet, if they had survived, would have potentially faced jail for their romance under modern laws. And we all know that underage kids do it, and no-one, including the police, does anything about it, as long as there is no inequality in the power of the parties.
But what about animals? Does the law have a role peering into the bedrooms of our pets? The Greens obviously think so. Lee Rhiannon is concerned that an “under age” elephant has got pregnant in Taronga Park Zoo.
“It’s obviously difficult to stop animals mating, particularly when they’re the size of elephants,” she says.
Obviously!
February 13, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
In the bosom of the ladies’ gym
On this Valentine’s Day of 2008 may I take the opportunity to wish you love. If romanitic love is not on your doorstep, perhaps that more diffuse emotion of social well-being is within your domain. This may consist of no more than an absence of malice. In the aftermath of the historic apology to the Stolen Generation of Aboriginals, I hope such feelings are expanding, for all our sakes. Truly civil society is a form of love, I am here to tell you.
Comfort comes in many corners of one’s life. Something as humble as a daily trip to the gym can be a source of reflection, pleasant pride, and monotonous security. Isn’t security almost by definition, monotonous? I find the blandness of Canberra to be mostly a source of security, as long as I don’t have to lock horns with career bureaucrats too often.
The gym I attend is called Bulges, and serves as a sort of boot camp for women who can’t get through the door at Contours, Curves, or the French franchise La Volupte. Most of those who attend, including myself, would benefit from losing the odd 5 kg. (Vanity compells me to note however that at 65 kg I am hardly the biggest bus in the depot.) Most of the women are well over 40, and one comes in with a walking stick. All are welcome, and the intensity of activity is up to the individual.
The pattern is reliably constant: a set of machines that operate hydraulically, so that there is no frantic pressing of monitors or rushing to keep up with electronic screens. You jump into the circuit and use each machine for just 30 sec. In between there are 30 sec recovery pads, where you can jump, punch, swing, poke, jiggle, or do high kicks. I favour the high kicks, after doing some damage to my knee with the jumping. So I have calmed down and keep my heart beat in the active but not thumping territory.
Once you go around twice, you can do stretches. All up it takes me 40 min, and if I also bike or walk there, another 20 min for the round trip. It makes me feel refreshed, if not quite righteous.
The beauty for me is that you don’t need to attend classes as such, but can drop in at any time. You just join the circle and watch the other bouncing bosoms and enter the conversation if you care to. (Unfortunately my bosom is too small to do any noticeable bouncing, but my brain is a D cup.)
Apparently they tried this circle approach out with a men’s version, but it didn’t resound positively. The men didn’t like being face to face in an equitable circle; perhaps there was no opportunity for showing off. Maybe they just didn’t like the implied social setting, where smiling and idle chatter help pass the time. There is no appreciable grunting among the women.
Instead, trivia such as children, or grandchildren, jobs, the weather, maybe the garden or cooking. Last spring I brought in oodles of cosmo seedlings, naughty exuberant things that had sprung up in my veggie beds, and offered them on wet newspaper to the ladies on Saturday mornings. Like all gardeners, however incompetent or humble (that’s me) I relish knowing that seeds are being spread, and may prosper under other hands.
This particular gym is relaxed, the staff are friendly and know all the hundreds of women who flow through by name. They will ask after absent women, and express concern if someone is sick or has had to leave town on family business. I try to keep the conversation light, as there are some areas of my life that need to be free of the heavy stuff. That way, too, I can maintain a persona that is positive and sometimes get a laugh. Like when the discussion turns to men, and I raise of my theory of the driven and the dragged…which I may elaborate on here in the future.
Nearly every week someone asks if I used to be a dancer, due to my combination of movements from Horton technique, ballet, yoga, and Pilates, with a bit of preventive physiotherapy thrown in. Mind you, no one has ever asked if I AM a dancer, but I can handle that.
It has taken a long evolutionary path for my life to be stable and sensible enough to enjoy the quiet pleasures of such settings. As I grow older I have come to value more the inherent gentleness that I feel from most women in my society.
The news is full of grimacing African faces with machetes, or (an Australian trained) psychotic who would murder a Nobel Peace Prize winner, or insurgents taping bombs to women with Down’s Syndrome for remote explosion. In the clean, simple, kind company of women similar to myself, I can’t help but ponder if anything on this planet could ever bring my surroundings to such a state. Could our men ever attack their neighbors?
As a hopeless intellectualiser, I muse on this absence of malice, the atmosphere of low demand and high support. I see the Golden Rule in operation, the fundamental basis of stable societies everywhere, obvious and yet often overlooked in our pursuit of novelty and complexity. From this neutral yet self-protective stance flow transparency, mutualism, equity and even a less exploitative view of other creatures and natural resources. Who is asking the King Penguins if they are willing to sacrifice their species to our lifestyles?
The book I am reading now, about the Feminization of Nature, opens with a quote from the novel Children of God. You may have seen the movie, with the great actors Clive Owen and Robert Carlyle. The scientific book is about the collapse of fertility due to synthetic estrogens, something I have been aware of for some years. In the movie that leads to tribalism and viciousness.
Thankfully, there are no tribes to speak of in Canberra. Religion, that often poisonous vehicle of ideology and power, is muted and easily ignored. For me, these are good times and Canberra is a good place. The gym smoothes my muscles and my soul. I wish you all love and good health.
February 12, 2008 | Graham
Sorry too limited
I don’t have a problem with saying sorry for the “Stolen Generation”, although the HREOC report “Bringing them home” appears to have exaggerated the actual facts of the matter.
But to limit an apology to such a problematic and minor part of the whole story of injustice to Australia’s indigenous inhabitants seems to me to be perverse.
Particularly as the events on which it is premised are legitimately disputed and the legislation upon which they were based was passed with the best of intentions.
Yet on so many other events from colonisation to colour bars there can be no dispute, and they affect so many more indigenous than those affected by the “stolen generation”. Dispossession and death are much more important and significant than forced removals, many of which could have occurred independently of race.
February 06, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Junkies are the scum of the earth (3)
No point in talking about my son any more. Why depress everyone, including myself? Better to boast of solutions to the tedious society vs the individual vs resource distribution conundrum. In relation to drug policy at least.
Again I find my suggestions are viable, and being implemented in the enlightened backwoods of Scandinavia. On the first ABC TV Foreign Correspondent of the new season (which has surely picked up and become more thought provoking since Jennifer Byrne left) one of the stories was about an island in Norway which is an eco-jail. The crims grow food, raise beasts, have private rooms, and the whole project is aiming to become carbon neutral.
For years I have advocated an isolated community, preferably in the middle of the Nullabor, where escape is futile, for drug offenders. There they would learn to be self-sufficient, manage their lives, cooperate with others, and hopefully learn some skills. The cold waters around the Norwegian island serve the same function of isolation as the desert sands, with the added element of sustainability. That completes the circle for me. The Director of the prison, for it is a prison, believes that a focus on environmental sustainability is good in itself, but also has deep messages for the inmates. Mind you, these inmates looked more like Trailer Park Boys than OZ, for those who have been lucky enough to see the former. OZ is a bit too dark for me, TPB is at least funny.
What could impress the lawbreakers more than the stark obligation of growing and then dishing up their own dinners? And isn’t that the problem we now all face? We can no longer escapt from the reality of balancing how we live and what we consume with ever-amplifying feedback about the inherent limits of our choices.
Today’s Canberra Times warns severely that ‘Worse is to come’ unless we cut back on our spending to reduce inflation. Hold on, isn’t this the same Received Wisdom that gleefully counts the retail receipts for stupid spending over Christmas? Yet on page two there is an article about the growing pile of plastic rubbish in the north Pacific gyre, now twice the size of the United States. When will we connect the dots?
In any case, surely a benign, first world country like Norway (and belatedly Australia) surely can reach out to develop sensitive and holistic approaches to law breakers. I have no problems with drug taking. But I have a big problem with people who go beyond recreation and move into destruction of society. Keep your habits to yourself is my mantra, and indeed this is what I try to practice.
As for my son, well off we go today for his rehab at the coast. He is still too arrogant for a real rehab, so it will be in my shed with the composting toilet, the sound of the sea in the distance. For years I have been trying to get him there, even for a few days, for a break from his sad lifestyle and a good prolonged feed. Finally he is coming, but not without a call this morning trying to back out. But we are going, his methodone is arranged for the local chemist, and with heart in throat, we’re off.
Perhaps he will even respond to my holistic setting in positive ways, as the homeopathic ocean cleanses his sins. Hope costs nothing. Keeping him in beer will set me back a bit.
February 05, 2008 | Graham
Australia speaks – it’s Obama v McCain
We can’t vote in US elections, but that didn’t stop On Line Opinion from running a primary for the Democratic and Republican parties involving Australians.
This is the release that I put out to publicise the results. You can read a longer and more entertaining version in the article that I wrote for OLO.
Australian “online primary†chooses Obama and McCain for Super Tuesday.
The winners of an “online primary†conducted by On Line Opinion, the first for Super Tuesday, are Barack Obama and John McCain.
Obama scored 54% to beat rival Hilary Clinton (33%), while the closest Republican to McCain (48%) was Giuliani (11%) who has withdrawn. Huckabee, Romney and Paul were all tied on 6%.
Graham Young, Chief Editor and founder of On Line Opinion said that the “primary†had attracted over 2000 responses from around Australia.
Major findings were:
- Obama and McCain would have easily won their respective nominations.
- If Australia were the US, the Democrats would be heading for an “ultra-landslide†and are even further ahead
than Kevin Rudd was at a comparable stage of the federal election. - An overwhelming number of Labor, Australian Democrat and Greens voters identify with the US Democrats, but so do substantial minorities of Liberals (37%) and Nationals (30%).
- Obama is almost equally popular between genders, and more popular with younger voters.
- McCain is favoured by men and older voters.
- Australian voters see the choices in largely symbolic terms, rather than relation to specific policies – they are reacting to personalities more than platforms.
- While Climate Change was the number one issue for voters in the last Australian election it is only mentioned by 3% in terms of the US election, similar in magnitude to the number who mention the Iraq war.
- Perceptions of the candidates seem to follow the US media narratives. The Obama/Clinton contest is seen as experience versus change, man versus woman, black versus white, with “experience†and “change†the top ranked issues in the Democrat primary.
- McCain is viewed favourably because of his Vietnam war record, and to a lesser extent because of his record on the Iraq war. He is seen as having integrity, and representing change as well as experience. Unfortunately for him he is also “the best of a bad bunchâ€. McCain is the least worst Republican candidate.
- The Christian fundamentalist influence on the Republicans is a major concern for voters.
- Most respondents appeared supportive of a significant role for the USA in global affairs. When thinking of the candidate that is best for Australia, most respondents are concerned to see US prestige restored, viewing this as the best way of dealing with Islamic terrorism, which appears to be the major international issue of concern. Obama is their pick to do this, partly because of his multi-cultural background.
Mr Young said that if the US election were left up to Australian voters it would be similar to a re-run of the last Australian election – the new, young, slightly nerdy, inexperienced but eloquent guy versus the old conviction politician – with a similar result.
For more in-depth analysis go to http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6962