I thought it might be an idea for people frequenting The-RiotACT to spill their beans on what visions, ideas or general thoughts
they may have about where Canberra should be, or is heading by the year 2020. I for one think automatically of greener and more sustainable public transport. Not that I am an ultra-green light-rail supporter, but it is something that I can that SHOULD be on the agenda for such a forward looking visionary and pro-active ideas-feast that is “The 2020 Summit”.
Or maybe you just saw Cate Blanchett in Manuka…
Public Transport has to be at the top of the agenda, if we want to reduce carbon emissions, not to mention that, the way things are going, driving a car is going to be prohibitively expensive by 2020.
In any case, I hate having to drive everywhere because it means I have to concentrate all the time. I’d much rather switch off and daydream during a twenty minute ride to work on a metro light rail system or similar.
But what will it take for people to not use their cars in Canberra?
Public Transport is very important.
They used to say that Canberra was too small in population for sustainable public transport.
Now Canberra is much bigger and they say it is too spread out for effective public transport.
I think they just need to get more innovative. Smaller mini-busses could be the way to go.
LIght Rail
Light rail won’t happen for the same reason GDE did happen. Vested interest and no future thoughts beyond the next election.
Nuclear power.
Electric cars the size of golf buggies which you collect from hub points and pay for with a swipe of plastic and which return a deposit when they are returned to the hub. These will not replace cars or public transport but be an adjunct and gradually will become the norm. They could use bike lanes, cleaning and damage problems could all be solved with a bit of thought.
I was originally cynical of the 20202 summit, but now I’m getting really excited about what these great ideas are going to be.
Nationally, we need a piad maternity leave scheme. I would also like to see more done for Indigenous people, but this is where we need new ideas because none of the old ideas that have been recycled seem to work.
For Canberra, I definitely agree that our reliance on cars is a problem. But again, we need a major new idea not a rehash of all the old ones (light rail, re-do Action’s routes etc).
I also want to see a revamp of the public health system, especially when it comes to having babies (something I am going through now). I want to see ante-natal care incorporated into the public health clinics rather than attached to the hospitals. You can then see your midwife at your local clinic throughout your pregnancy, and still choose which hospital you want to give birth at. You go back to the clinic for baby care afterwards with the same midwife.
bigred said :
That’s the problem. No government is willing to waste time and resources on something that would happen outside of their current term, or may improve the possibility of another term. But perhaps we shouldn’t be so negative and sarcastic about forward planning, even if pollies have their heads in their backsides. On the same token, I wouldn’t say that the pollies are the only category of folk with their heads in the sand.
I’d like to see some forward planning for a light-rail transport system by local government and other industries. I just don’t get the feel that there is any forward thinking from any government, be it local or federal, 6 years ago or now…
Nuclear power. Well, is that something you think we may have, but you don’t agree with? Or are you a proponent of it, lol. Though we should have more environmentally friendly sources of electricity.
I’d also hope that 90% of residencies in Canberra would have rain-water tanks installed.
But you know, maybe people plan to be living somewhere else within 10 or so years.
Yes, I’m a supported of it, barney.
Build it in Macarthur, too.
Supporter, even.
Nobody has mentioned Internet access, bandwidth and cost as of yet.
And GnT, I completely agree with paid maternity leave.
GnT said :
So you just want the midwives to work in a non-hospital setting for your antenatal appointments…? Whilst I’m sure that the TCH ambulatory care goons are already onto it, this provides a logistical nightmare, in that the midwives would be away from the birthing centre (which is attached to the hospital) on days they do ante- and post natal clinics – thus removing them from labouring women in the hospital. Succinctly, they won’t be able to be in two places at once (whereas they can now, when their patients visit them at the hospital).
I agree the entire public health system needs a lot of work (I see it from the inside), but I would contend that women’s and children’s health is comparatively well serviced in the ACT, when contrasted with other services that are really struggling at the moment.
Ooh, wait, I know -
WORKING FAMILIES.
If you’re not a parent, then please step to one side and kill yourself, right Kevie?
Yeah, I know my idea is not workable but the current problems as I see it, from a patient’s point of view are:
lack of continuity of care
lack of information
lack of birthing choice/options
The Canberra Midwifery Program has some great positives (continuity being one) but plenty of negatives (lack of choice, despite them proclaiming to be all about choice). I want a system that gives people continuity AND choice, as well as being informed (which I think I am thanks to the net, but I’m sure plenty of mothers have little or no idea).
I think there are big improvements to be made in maternity services and baby and child health in the ACT.
The birth centre at Woden should be expanded to Calvary also. Currently you have to book in the day you find out you are pregnant, and even then probably go on a waiting list. The birth centre is the only place where you will have met your midwife before you turn up to give birth. Everywhere else it is just a lottery – you might get a good one, or you might hate them.
And baby services are minimal here. In Adelaide all children up to 12 are bulk billed by doctors. And in victoria and qld babies continue to have monthly visits with the health centre nurses for their first 12 months. Here you get a 4 week check, then an 8 week check and that is it – your on your own.
Well, I think that the idea of promoting ideas is a good thing. It can provoke thinking in people, but maybe it had an idea which was beyond some?
Or, on the other hand, was the event merely political spin, political genius or?
Does it grab you? Do you see front page headlines for weeks over?
Or do you see a future that is possible, when one thinks?
I kind of feel like I have the need to want more out of my governments.
Plain and simple. We need a hospital system that works. One without excuses, one without excessive waiting times, one with beds, and one that delivers results. We should aim to make the Canberra Hospital the best public hospital in Australia, not one of the worst, which is where I would currently place it from my experiences.
With a part-time crapola Minister at the helm, I doubt this will be fixed in the short-term, so 2020 looks like a good target date to have this mess ironed out.
Also, it would be great to get rid of the ACT Government by … let’s say 2019? Nice 30th birthday present??? Abolish self-government! Bring on the local council and say goodbye to all the mickey mouse politicians.
Monorail, monorail, monorail!!!!!!
PLease go to http://www.freewebs.com/mypicturesandsht/simpsons%20monorail.gif.
The whole 2020 summit was a load of crap. Nothing will come of it. A lot of overarching, underpinning, inclusiveness blah, blah, blah, artists in residence at every school, more public funding for the arts, blah, blah.
Rudd sounded like a true communist leader, equality for all, everything for everyone.
Did any of the delegates arrive by public transport?
Yeah. Cate Blanchett caught the bus. Waited in the cold at the bus stop for the bus which was running late then used her superwoman strength to haul herself up on the bus along with her capsule, pram, baby bag full of the requisite baby items and the new born baby suckling at her breast. Of course the bus driver didn’t help her fold up her pram or get on the bus, he just stared at her with a look that said “hurry up and get on the bloody bus” along with all the other passengers who were quietly “in the zone” and not having to concentrate on anything……. then when she got off the bus, the stop was actually 500 metres from where she actually needed to go so she had to haul………..you get the drift
Bus travel in Canberra is sooooooooooo practical.
gNt, good luck with the whole baby thing but my advice is get yourself a reliable car. Something small, maybe electric. But don’t count on public transport around here to get you to the hospital on time.
hehe – or a taxi!
Some more ideas:
– Watering of vegie gardens at all times.
– sprinkler watering of gardens allowed on sundays
– sprinkler watering of lawns allowed once a month – or hand watering of lawns once a week
– Singles/couples in public housing who’s families have moved out to be down-sized to a unit.
– Some really basic tiny units to be built as ‘emergency public housing’ – if people are really desperate they’ll take them, til they get a real unit or house.
– a lockable rehab centre to be built (for crooks to be sentenced to)
– a private rehab centre to be built (for those who can pay to go to on-demand)
- legalise drugs (this one is national too – or else every Aust druggie will move here.)
– legalise gay partnerships
– the couples rate of the dole/hecs to be paid at double the singles rate – to stop people lying about being in a relationship. (this one is national really)
illyria said :
And light rail will be so much better…not. For the same reasons, not to mention the expen$e and disruption of setting it up in the first place.
Let me make biodiesel and distill ethanol in my back yard without paying excise. Doesn’t seem to be a problem in New Zulland.
a government that we can elect and then have make laws for canberrans, not just some that the big people’s gov’t wants while disallowing the ones it doesn’t like.
so, some respect.
and a mandatory hamburger on a sunday evening standard across all canberra. dammit.
Free beer every Friday after work.
That’s a new and novel idea and makes more sense than some of the 2020 ideas.
Let me make biodiesel and distill ethanol in my back yard without paying excise. Doesn’t seem to be a problem in New Zulland. – WMC, you don’t pay excise. There’s plenty of people who frequent this site who are homebrewing biodiesel right here in Canberra.
You can also pick up a still at butts-n-brew, so you can distil the methanol out of your glycerin at the end – net effect you’ll not actually use any methanol (at least not a lot) through the entire process.
Then send the wife down the markets every sunday with all the spare glycerin you have (soap…)
CanberraResident said :
I agree wholeheartedly. But is the public willing to pay for that system? TCH needs an awful lot of money to bring it out of the doldrums it’s currently in. Slashing the administrators and ineffectual managers would be a good start, but even if we achieved this, the hospital would still need an astronomical amount of money to bring it back to where it should be.
All the smart people were at BarCampCanberra this weekend – not the 2020 Summit
I think health is one area where people really are happy to see their taxes spent.
What can actually be done though – expand the hospital – it is already huge.
What can be done to improve the place…? How long have you got?
Seriously – ask anyone who works there. We’ve got heaps of ideas – a shame nobody in management is interested in what the troops have to say.
I’m interested – what would you do first?
I would like to see a government actually doing something instead of wasting time and our money with bullsht like 2020 summits.
Canberrans wont be happy with public transport until they have the bus running to their front door at their command. A light rail may one day be feasible, but the only place they will ever run is the main transport corridors, not to the suburbs. There will have to be some sort of connectivity with buses and people will have to realise the bus won’t run down every street and they will have to walk to catch one! But since governments can’t organise a decent bus service, it’s highly unlikely they can run anything else.
Sepi – I would take a razor gang to the paper pushers and micro-managers who do nothing but run surveys and start stupid projects designed to improve outcomes, but in reality, do nothing but create work to justify their pointless existence. I would pour money into attracting nurses – real nurses who actually work on the floor, rather than sit in on committee meetings. Without more nurses, we can’t open beds, and we need more beds open to prevent access block. Given the nation wide shortage of nurses (and doctors), this would necessitate paying above award wages and offering a better working environment than is presently on show at TCH, so that we could competitively recruit against other states. I would pour obscene amounts of money into aged care facilities in the ACT, and staff them with nurses who are paid *at least* the same as their colleagues in the hospital, as opposed to the two-thirds of the award that they take home today (which in itself is a scandal). More aged care beds would free up a substantial amount of acute beds in TCH which are otherwise occupied by elderly patients (often for weeks or months – occasionally years – at a time) who are waiting for a bed in an aged care facility. I would make TCH management acknowledge the fact that they are already stretching their workforce to breaking point, and make efforts to lift morale, which is at an all-time low at present. Oh, and I’d do more than pay lip service to safe working hours for medical officers. But that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
And that’s just a start.
Yass will be annexed and the ACT section of the Hume Highway will be a toll road. We’ll also be eyeing off Batemans Bay and everything north to Jervis Bay in an effort to reunify the Territory.
If you are talking about commuting, CARS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM… the number of people per car is! Most people commute at one person per vehicle. Two people per car creates the same GHGs as public transport, so if people took car-pooling seriously there wouldn’t be a problem, and road congestion/parking problems would be almost non-existent. What about a website specifically designed to facilitate linking people in suburbs for car pooling? And then change parking regs so that 1 person/car pays $20/day, 2/car $5/day, and 3+ pay nothing? For a minimal cost to the govt, you could achieve the same pollution-negating outcomes with a little forward planning and community spirit.
That’s only one idea. I have hundreds more. And they are all feasible. Why wasn’t there a HUMAN ECOLOGY forum at the summit?
Dammit, we need an edit button. I forgot the / in my bold tag. it was meant to look like this:
If you are talking about commuting, CARS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM… the number of people per car is! Most people commute at one person per vehicle. Two people per car creates the same GHGs as public transport, so if people took car-pooling seriously there wouldn’t be a problem, and road congestion/parking problems would be almost non-existent. What about a website specifically designed to facilitate linking people in suburbs for car pooling? And then change parking regs so that 1 person/car pays $20/day, 2/car $5/day, and 3+ pay nothing? For a minimal cost to the govt, you could achieve the same pollution-negating outcomes with a little forward planning and community spirit.
That’s only one idea. I have hundreds more. And they are all feasible. Why wasn’t there a HUMAN ECOLOGY forum at the summit?
It takes me 23 minutes to travel by car to Civic from my garage. It takes me 65 minutes by bus in peak times and I do not change buses. Tell me how light rail is going to be faster please?
@Pandy – no traffic lights.
Gunstreet girl,
well said. I wonder if Katie has thought of any of those things….
el said :
Pretty much the message I’m getting. But more accurately, if you’re not currently raising children, please place your taxes on the table, and step aside. You don’t count.
It’s ironic that many of the things we’re labelling as issues and problems for the future are either caused or exacerbated by rising population.
RuffnReaday has the right idea – we need to use what we have more effectively before assuming we need something new.
Light rail isn’t really feasible in Canberra, because it will only be able to run between the major hubs anyway, and you still need a way to get from the suburbs to the hubs. We need ideas to improve traffic flow, rather than hindering it. For example, adding roundabouts to major routes for very low use cross streets does nothing but slow everything down, meaning more people trying to us the same road at the same time, and the traffic snarls we have now. Seriously encouraging car pooling is a great idea. Of course, it won’t work for everyone (like myself), as I have to drop kid off at care, then wife at work, then go to work, and do the reverse in the evening (although this is form of car pooling I suppose).
RuffinReady there are websites for car pooling. Google it. I just don’t think anyone knows about them. I think car pooling is a great idea, no one wants to do it though.
Plus there are no 3 for Free parking areas now to encourage it. WEll I don’t know of any in civic.
Thumper said:
Thumper said :
+ 1. All good, solid, commonsense stuff. I’ve heard of all the poor oldies who are in hospital, because there’s no aged care accommodation for them. Aged Care would be a much, much cheaper way of managing their conditions, and would free up beds for people who need to be in hospital. Many of the sick oldies don’t need to be in acute care, and being in an acute care environment is terrible for them, I reckon it makes them feel worse. More aged care should be a priority NOW. I can’t believe the government hasn’t put this at the top of the list.
Aged care really is in a mess, which is terrible, given that these people have already worked and paid taxes for this country for all their lives.
Surely we, as a society, owe them more than just a bed in a hospital?
And if wee can get these poor old people into aged care facilities, preferably government funded, then it would free up beds in the hospitals.
Is this as simple as I seem to think it is?
I note that the prestigious 2020 summit didn’t meantion aged care.
just some airy fairy stuff about improved health for all Australians…
FFS, that’s a no brainer…
mention…
typo…
Everyone is talking about crap we could have been talking about 10 years ago, thats not thinking for the future (well not by my definition anyway)
Public transport will not (and shouldn’t) REPLACE personal transport. It’s a nice idea but everyone keeps talking like petrol will be $5 a litre soon, roads will be obsolete blah blah…
Why not think in a “future” kind of way? We WILL have an alternate fuel source when they get off their asses … zero pollution vehicles = who cares about forcing people to carpool or catch public transport? (It’s an issue for now, but not the future..)
Why dont we do something nobody else has done, like have tubes with little pods that you call up like a taxi with no driver, and transports you around underground to central locations (very quickly). Have automated robotic mining equipment to go around digging all the tunnels etc to keep cost down.
That’s just a hair-brain idea off the top of my head. But you know, its something different. (and I like NEW technology)
Or maybe we should just start preparing our future city to accomodate horse and carriage?
I think the ‘fat tax’ on junk food is a ripper. More money for the respective State Governments, however in the scheme of things apart from increased funding for awareness raising activites in regards to choosing healthy food options the only real change will be rise in the price on the board for a steak sanger or a box of deep fried dity bird.
I’ve checked out the generic car pooling sites … and they’re useless because they’re not localised to Canberra and no one knows about them. I’ve listed on PickupPal as a driver and not one enquiry. Doubt anyone has even looked at my listing.
RuffnReady – you should get in contact with me if you want to do something; I’m keen to get something started (having ditched the Fair Canberra Parking project due to non-interest). Google “NathanaelB” to find me. Cheers.