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).

Comments

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. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog