The ACT’s Minister for Planning, Andrew Barr, gave a headland speech last night at the University of Canberra for the annual Don Aitkin lecture.
The text is now online.
The bit that’s excited attention is this one:
When it comes to planning our city, there are many reasons for opposing change, and some of them are valid.
But the more spurious arguments tend to come from those who want to preserve Canberra as a museum to their own childhood.
They will for example fondly remember a library that they frequented when they were at school, and passionately fight for its preservation, even though they never use it and never will.
They will fight for the preservation of a tree, not because of its inherent value, but simply because they climbed it when they were young.
So let’s take some time to ask the question – do we really want nothing to change?
Do we really want to preserve Canberra as a museum to our childhood?
And even if we do, then which Canberra?
The Canberra of prohibition?
The Canberra of white, middle class, male, conservative monoculture?
The Canberra where every shop shut its doors at midday on Saturday?
The Canberra where women could only be associate members of clubs and were barred from the snooker room (unless they were serving drinks of course)?
The Canberra of two television stations, both black & white?
Sure, it wasn’t all bad – far from it.
How often have you heard the expression “Canberra, it’s a great place to bring up children”?
So it was; so it still is.
But there has to be more to a city than that.
And like it or not, this city is changing.
Even if we wanted to stop it, we can’t.
There might be no tide in Lake Burley Griffin, but we can’t do a King Canute.
We can try to resist it, or we can embrace change to make Canberra what we want to be.