Skip to main content

Canberra weird or what – but always willing to innovate



The “weirdness” of Canberra is again in the local newspapers (Canberra Times (May 22, 2012). In an address at the Australian National University, Professor Stephen Dovers, head of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at ANU, said “Canberra is not as weird as it used to be.” He was referring to the criticism Canberra receives as a boring “bush capital” and largely home to parliamentarians, civil servants, and university students.

Dovers stated that Canberra’s status of a rich, smart and intellectually vibrant city state (it is actually a territory and not a state of Australia) makes it an ideal social laboratory for the rest of the nation and the world. He believes it could be a test bed for innovation in sustainable urban development. Canberra, he said, had the capacity to integrate research across a range of fields to drive evidence-based policy development on a diversity of issues. This, he believes, is predominantly due to Canberra being medium-sized (about 350,000 people), with state and local functions in one jurisdiction, diversity of land uses, a rich capacity for research with CSIRO (the government science research centre), four universities, federal agencies, and a community that engages with issues on future planning.

Issues that could be investigated and researched in a more integrated manner, he said, included social policy, energy and water efficiency, climate adaptation, planning, public transport, and biodiversity. Canberra residents have had a long tradition of being willing to accept innovation in the social sphere – such as moves to abolish plastic bags, sanction same-sex civil unions, conduct drug-injecting trial centres, and trial technologies to control gambling. It was also the only state or territory, during the 1999 referendum on whether Australia should become a republic or to remain within the Commonwealth, that elected for republic status.  

While Canberra is already known for its research, Dovers maintains that to correct the media and political denigration of the city there should be greater emphasis placed upon achievement rather than argument.



MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Apes go to the movies - and remember the scenes

Apes remember major events in movies, even after a single viewing. That’s the findings of primate research in Japan (New Scientist, September 17, 2015). Researchers at the Kyoto University in Japan conducted experiments with two species of apes – chimpanzees and bonobo primates – to test their memory and recall. Instead of using food to test memory, they used films. The researchers made two short movies to show to the apes. Fumihiro Kano and his colleague, Satoshi Hirata, starred in the films with another person dressed as an ape. They wanted to have strong dramatic scenes to see if the apes remembered them. In the first 30-second movie the character ape bursts through a door on the right hand side (there is also a door on the left hand side) and attacks the two researchers (characters) 18 seconds after the start. After 24 seconds a human character choses one of two weapons next to each other and launched a revenge attack on the ape. In the second 30-second movie t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...
1 comment
Read more