Funny thing about Canberrans — bag Canberra, and they react with outrage. Criticise Sydney, and Sydneysiders couldn’t care less. Have a go at Melbourne, Melburnians will barely glance up from their coffees. But Canberrans have a real inferiority complex. So Paul Keating’s reference to Canberra as one big mistake produced anguished cries in the national capital yesterday.
Handily, Keating himself best explained the need for Canberra. As he was actually in Melbourne, he declared that the capital could have been there, doubtless out of deference to his hosts. But soon the visionary Sydney architect in him took over, and he opined that in fact it should have been in Sydney, on Garden Island (good luck getting a parking spot).
If a former Prime Minister can’t work out where to stick the capital in 2009, imagining our NSW and Victorian ancestors — mired in trade disputes as well as bitter colonial rivalry — could ever have managed it is a bit rich.
One of the unappreciated benefits of Canberra is that it has always served as an epithet for people outside it. Every sin of government can be blamed on “Canberra”. This artificial town, peopled by soulless bureaucrats (invariably “faceless”, “pencil-pushing” and “shiny-arsed”) and useless politicians can be the national scapegoat for every parochial whinge, complaint about officialdom and rant about parasitic pollies.
Australian politics would, I suggest, have taken a different course if people railed at Sydney or Melbourne rather than Canberra.
Not that I particularly mind outsiders bagging Canberra (I’m a transplanted Sydneysider). The fewer people who know what a fine place it is to live the better, for mine. It is an actual, real-life town these days, unlike the company town that it was up until the 1980s. And the ACT pays it way, giving more in taxes than it receives in revenue from the rest of the federation.
And yes, it’s boring if you’re under 30, and it has no beaches and the coffee’s poor, but it has the mountains and it’s beautiful and the epitome of the great place to bring up kids.
What was more surprising was Malcolm Fraser’s comments about Parliament House, which he appears to now regard as a billion-dollar folly blotting his Prime Ministerial record. Keating disagreed, correctly. APH is one of Australia’s great buildings, but its majesty is subtle compared, say, to a show-off like the Sydney Opera House. Under tabloid media pressure during the early ‘80s recession, Fraser agreed to some design changes to reduce costs.
The one with the greatest visual impact was the removal of the planned trees that would have covered the outside of the building, rather than the sweeping lawns down which generations of kids have now rolled. The smoother, more minimalist result is arguably a significant improvement.
As for whether politicians are cut off from voters in here, well, the days of the public roaming the corridors of power are unlikely to ever return. In any event, if politicians become perceived as disconnected, voters have a way of dealing with that. Both Fraser and Keating can attest to that.
As a Canberran, I can only agree with Bernard that the coffee here is poor. It is a never ending search to find a coffee house that serves a consistently good cup. It’s about time Canberra did something about it!
I am puzzled by Canberra bashing, because it always seems to be someone who doesn’t live here saying how much they don’t want to live here. To which I can only say…well thats good then, everyone happy all round. You can live somewhere else, and I can live here, which I like. Personally, I don’t see why Sydney folk feel proximity to the Opera House is worth losing 2hours a day in commuting, but its not like I go out of my way to point bash their dysfunctional cesspit of failed urban deregulation gone horribly, horribly wrong. Why, because I don’t live there and you couldn’t pay me enough to do so.
State parliament in Sydney is as central as you could wish but that doesn’t mean that people flock to see it. I went to have a look a few weeks ago and, no doubt wisely, the parliamentary attendants treated me like a freak, possibly deranged. I had to wait 20 minutes until someone could be bothered to unlock the door to the gallery. I was the only visitor and the attendant was obliged to wait nearby – and he was making it clear that I was wasting his time. What kind of tosser believes parliament is real and worth looking at I could hear him thinking very loudly.
The parliament itself was near-deserted and as dreary as you could wish. For the life of me I can’t recall what the National Party member for Dunromin was whingeing about. I doubt he could recall too because he wasn’t listening either.
After twenty minutes, and having given up all hope of seeing Nathan Rees slam his pecker on the table, I skulked out feeling as furtive and ridiculous as a porn shop patron leaving with a big plain box under his arm.
Thankfully, the Domain was nearby and as I collapsed on the grass I thanked the Lord that he had spared me one more time.
Late last summer we sat in the Boathouse restaurant, eating food as good as any in the other places, looking at the spectacular view down the lake towards the Brindabellas, and agreed that Canberra bashing was a wonderful thing, because it persuaded the rest of Oz to stay away.
Hooray for Canberra! Since leaving Sydney I’ve never looked back. But there’s no reason for anyone else to move here. Everything you like in Sydney is better.