24 November 2006

Canberra Consultative Forum to discuss future

| Kerces
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Federal Territories minister Jim Lloyd is trumpeting the “revitalisation” of something called the Minister’s Canberra Consultative Forum.

Apparently this is to be a biannual meeting of Mr Lloyd, Chief minister Jon Stanhope and various representatives from Canberra Business Council, ACT & Regional Chamber of Commerce, the National Capital Authority, the Capital Region Development Board and Australia Business Limited.

The point of the meetings is to “foster links between the Australian Government, the ACT Government and the Canberra business community over the coming years”.

Mr Lloyd said his forum, presumably unlike whatever previous incarnations there may have been, will be “focussed and productive” and “get results”.

“None of us are interested in having meetings just for the sake of it,” he said. In that case, some more clearly defined goals might be a good thing.

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equalitarian9:45 pm 25 Nov 06

Environment, community interaction, education, health…are exactly the nebulous subjects these forums will address in their own way.
Specifically because the “community” is so unfocussed and varied in it’s own little hobby grievance, there is no single citizen’s action force they need to include.
Is there a pluralist Vision Mob who have terrific ideas and an exciting view of the future for all?
If not, then the pollies and business will win every time.

It still looks to me like a bunch of politicians and business people deciding what the city should be, with no input from the actual citizens. Which means the only visions that will be presented to the people for “discussion” at “at a later point”, are ones that don’t address the key concerns of the people. Like environment, community interaction, education, health… Instead, we’ll get plans for malls and statues of dead politicians.

Chris,
“fostering links between ….” is usually public speak for a series of high level talks where issues such as things you have identified will be scoped, placed on the radar, given a priority rating then discussed, with all interested parties at a later point.

Let the boys do their job, so you know where you can do yours, to achieve the best possible results rather than behave like a politican and full a room with nonsensical hippy yabber.

I think you’re wrong, S4anta. This is exactly the time that social and environmental issues need to be included. It’s a bit like engineering – once things have been engineered in or out, you can’t go back and do it properly later on. Needs to be fully integrted right from the start.

the community input is from the CBC, ACTCCI, ABL and the CRDB Chris. With all due respect, the wider community really shouldnt be involved in these strategic think tanks at this point.

Not that you could actually achieve much in the way of “focussed and repoductive results” in 2 meetings a year…

What is the scope of this forum? Because if it’s a wide-ranging vision for Canberra’s future, there needs to be community input. Otherwise you get a city that looks like a Westfield mall.

Even if they just mean the future of Canberra’s economic development, community input is important. Otherwise you get lots of business heavyweights assuming the masses will conform, when perhaps the masses want a work/life balance that cannot be achieved by treating them as expendable business tools.

blingblingbears12:07 pm 24 Nov 06

because they like to be seen pretending to do something

Government and business planning the ACT – where is the community input?

They cannot run an effective taxi service – the basis for business and tourism – so what is being focussed going to achieve.

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