Australian Capital Territory January to June 2023

Abstract

In early 2023, Canberra was the subject of two federal inquiries, one looking at the city's role as national capital and the other considering the ACT government's decision to compulsorily acquire Calvary, a local hospital. At the same time the Legislative Assembly focused on planning, an issue renowned for bringing out Canberrans' parochial side. In the event, however, the planning debate coincided with a national discussion about housing and development while the Calvary issue became entangled with the Territory's particular constitutional position.

Urban planning in the ACT is highly contentious. It pits supporters of a denser Canberra linked by more public transport, among whom Chief Minister Andrew Barr is usually numbered, against those who prefer the low-rise suburbia that still characterises much of the city. It also inspires a good deal of grassroots organisation: many inner suburbs have active residents' groups, which usually oppose change, while Greater Canberra, a city-wide YIMBY (yes-in-my-back-yard) group founded in 2021, advocates for denser neighbourhoods and more permissive zoning, especially in these same suburbs.

Little of this is unique to Canberra, and in 2023 a national debate about housing, cities, and anti-development sentiment (eg., Sydney Morning Herald, 25 July 2023) coincided with long-mooted reforms to the local planning system. This process started with a consultation round in 2019, but its key elements were a new planning bill, introduced to the Legislative Assembly in September 2022, and a new Territory Plan, to be introduced later in 2023. The planning bill established a new process for development applications, while the new Territory Plan will set out Canberra's zoning scheme.

The planning bill sought to introduce what the government called an outcomes-based system, with more room for developers to deviate from rigid (and justiciable) rules (Canberra Times, 18 December 2022). Offering an example in early 2023, Planning Minister Mick Gentleman suggested developers might seek approval from the Territory Planning Authority to build apartments with fewer carparks than the statutory minimum near public transport corridors. Young people, according to Gentleman, were saying “we want to live close to really good public transport… and we don't mind the density” (Canberra Times, 6 February 2023). Others did mind: the Canberra Times editorialised against Gentleman's suggestion and his assessment of the apartment market, saying “many Canberrans only buy units out of economic necessity” (Canberra Times, 7 February 2023).

Greater Canberra, meanwhile, called for reduced parking minimums and more besides. Its ‘Missing Middle’ campaign, launched in February and backed by a range of groups including the YWCA and Master Builders ACT, asked the government to upzone Residential Zone One, which covers more than eighty percent of Canberra's residential land. This, they said, would clear the way for new townhouses and duplexes across large swathes of Canberra where they are currently prohibited and put downward pressure on house prices (Canberra Times, 21 February 2023).

Zoning was more relevant to the Territory Plan than the planning bill, but the Missing Middle campaign shaped the debate around both. Barr echoed some of its language without endorsing its policy prescriptions, saying Canberra had “a lot of apartments in the 60 to 100 square metre range, and… a lot of very big homes” but needed more “properties between 100 square metres and 200 square metres at the upper end” (Canberra Times, 17 March 2023). Jo Clay, the Greens planning spokesperson, similarly said “we typically either have high-density units or enormous houses for shrinking families and very little in-between,” but she characterised the existing system as “developer-led” rather than overly restrictive (RiotAct, 2 April 2023). The Liberals initially said little, but planning spokesperson Peter Cain later wrote “urban infill is unavoidable as Canberra continues to grow, [but] it must be in keeping with the city's character and implemented in appropriate areas” (Canberra Times, 6 June 2023).

Compared to these debates, the passage of the planning bill in June was a rather dry affair. The Assembly worked through over one hundred amendments, some moved by the Greens, who absented themselves from cabinet discussions of the bill and refused to guarantee support when it was first introduced (Canberra Times, 22 September 2022, 7 June 2023). The Liberal Opposition voted against, and some residents' groups were highly sceptical about the outcomes-based concept; their leaders anticipated many planning matters continuing to end up in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Nonetheless, the bill passed on 6 June with the support of the Greens, Clay having secured several amendments she considered crucial (RiotAct, 6–7 June 2023).

Amidst the debate around the planning bill the government still had to deal with administrative matters, and the mental health portfolio, held by Greens MLA Emma Davidson, proved particularly contentious. In January a review of Davidson's office, commissioned by Chief Minister Barr and Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury, was released following a freedom of information request. The review, conducted by consulting firm Proximity, gave a mixed assessment. It cited high levels of conflict in Davidson's office, but it also identified “good progress towards becoming a high-functioning and culturally collaborative office” (Canberra Times, 28 January 2023). Responding to the Opposition's criticism, Barr focused on the improvements, noting Davidson had entered the ministry immediately after her election in 2020 (Canberra Times, 8 February 2023).

Davidson encountered more trouble in March, when an internal Canberra Health Service email outlining a “serious breach in the privacy of patient health records” emerged (Canberra Times, 21 March 2023). The records, Davidson subsequently revealed, had been sent to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation's ACT branch without patients' consent (RiotAct, 23 March 2023). Later still she indicated the breach originated from Dhulwa, the Territory's secure mental health unit (RiotAct, 28 March 2023). Responding to an Opposition motion of no confidence, Davidson treated the disclosures as a grave matter, saying “there are no words suitable to express how upset I am about what has been done to patients and their families,” but the motion was easily defeated. The union, meanwhile, maintained the disclosures were legal since they related to patient safety (Canberra Times, 31 March 2023).

Late in March the federal parliament turned its attention to Canberra, its Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories commencing an inquiry into the city's role as national capital (Canberra Times, 27 March 2023). Seeking ways to “foster and promote the significance of Australia's National Capital,” the inquiry's terms of reference were broad. But most attention inevitably fell on the National Triangle, the central Canberra area housing Parliament House and most of the capital's national institutions, as well as surrounding suburbs where the National Capital Authority exercises strong planning powers.

Several submissions echoed the contending views about Canberra's future seen in planning debates. Some community groups sought to limit change: the Walter Burley Griffin Society suggested Canberra be added to the National Heritage List, in part to prevent “poor decision-making [and] untrammelled unsympathetic development” (Walter Burley Griffin Society, 25 April 2023), while the Reid Residents' Association was generally sceptical about attempts to “activate” the National Triangle (Reid Residents' Association, n.d. 2023). Others, however, sought just such activation, with Greater Canberra calling on the National Capital Authority to permit more commercial amenities in the National Triangle and higher density housing in the surrounding suburbs (Greater Canberra, 5 May 2023).

For the Territory government, the inquiry was an opportunity to highlight its contributions to Canberra's national standing, including through annual events like the Floriade and Enlighten festivals. It also highlighted how various federal approval processes impeded its signature light rail project, set to pass through the National Triangle in its next stage. This light rail line, the government said, “is subject to a larger number of planning approvals, which are also more complex, than any other equivalent project around Australia” (Australian Capital Territory Government, May 2023).

The National Capital inquiry grabbed the attention of urbanists and people with an interest in Canberra's governance, but the Territory government's decision to compulsorily acquire the Calvary hospital, announced on 10 May, generated much more heat. Since Calvary was a public hospital operated by the Catholic Little Company of Mary, the controversy had a significant religious aspect. Moreover, a Legislative Assembly inquiry into abortion and reproductive choice had recently criticised Calvary's religious ethos (RiotAct, 24 April 2023). But the government denied any link between the compulsory acquisition and religion. Instead, it said it acted to secure the site of the almost fifty-year-old hospital for a new public hospital due to be built later in the decade (RiotAct, 10 May 2023). Cabinet, it was later revealed, had considered this option from early 2022, well before the abortion inquiry (Canberra Times, 10 September 2023).

Opponents of the acquisition were quick to mobilise: Archbishop Christopher Prowse of the Canberra-Goulburn Archdiocese labelled it an “extraordinary and completely unnecessary government intervention” while Jeremy Hanson, acting Opposition Leader since April, accused the government of “riding roughshod over an organisation that has provided a great service to Canberra for over forty years” (RiotAct, 15 May 2023; Canberra Times, 16 May 2023). The Australian Christian Lobby organised a protest rally outside the Assembly (RiotAct, 24 May 2023) and CityNews, a free magazine known for its hostility to Barr's government, depicted a curiously cheerful Chief Minister mounted on a cross of light rail vehicles (CityNews, 18 May 2023).

The government was unmoved: a bill enabling the acquisition passed the Assembly on 1 June, the ACT Supreme Court upheld its validity a week later, and on 3 July Canberra Health Services assumed control of what was now designated North Canberra Hospital (Canberra Times, 1 and 10 June, 3 July 2023). Reflecting on the politics of the decision at the end of June, Barr compared it to the light rail debates of the last decade. There was, he said, “a section of the community who think it's a terrible decision” and would advance procedural as well as substantive arguments against it. But among Canberrans more generally, he felt, a majority of people, “probably similar in nature to the sort of majority that light rail enjoys […] support the decision” (RiotAct, 28 June 2023).

Barr was confident of a local majority, but some of his strongest critics were not ACT residents. Shortly after the acquisition's announcement, former Liberal Prime Minister Tony Abbott called it an “assault on the Church” (Canberra Times, 11 May 2023). Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton took a similar view, suggesting the Territory government had “taken a decision based on their opposition to a religion” (Canberra Times, 13 May 2023). Then, in June, Coalition Senator Matt Canavan moved for a federal inquiry into the acquisition. Initially unsuccessful, he later succeeded in having a private members' bill compelling the ACT government to hold a public enquiry referred to a Senate inquiry of its own (Canberra Times, 15 and 23 June 2023).

Canavan won his inquiry with the surprising support of the Senate's eleven Greens members. Federal Greens leader Adam Bandt called his Senate colleagues' vote a procedural matter (Canberra Times, 23 June 2023), but the Territory Greens were in an awkward position, not least because Canavan's private members' bill sought to amend the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act. Independent Senator David Pocock, one of the ACT's two Senators, complained of “interstate federal Senate colleagues from the Coalition and the Greens team[ing] up to interfere in an ACT Government issue” (RiotAct, 22 June 2023) while ACT Labor took to social media, accusing the Greens of “playing politics with the democratic rights of Canberrans.” In the end, however, the inquiry was of limited significance: after a day of hearings in September it recommended against passing Canavan's bill (Canberra Times, 5 and 8 September 2023).

Phrases like territory rights and self-government, much used by the Calvary inquiry's critics, evoked the federal parliament's long-standing but recently-repealed ban on territory euthanasia legislation. Tara Cheyne, the ACT's Human Rights Minister, responded to the ban's end by launching a discussion paper and consultation in early February. Taking it as given that some form of voluntary assisted dying would be introduced, Cheyne sought feedback on thirty-five questions about the details of an ACT system (RiotAct, 7 February 2023). One question was clearly the most contentious: should people under eighteen be eligible?

In late June, Cheyne reported on the consultation process. There was, she said, strong support for allowing some people under eighteen to access voluntary assisted dying. This came particularly from “those with lived experience of young people suffering with incurable, terminal diseases, including parents and clinicians.” The government did not commit to this approach, but it would, Cheyne said, introduce a voluntary assisted dying bill by the end of the year (RiotAct, 29 June 2023).

At the end of June, with the planning bill passed and both federal inquiries in motion, Barr delivered his twelfth budget as Treasurer (an office he holds along with the Chief Ministership). The government anticipated a $442.7 million deficit for 2023–24 but projected a surplus in 2025–26, a change from two years earlier, when it had anticipated persistent deficits. The change owed much to increased revenue from a variety of sources, including federal grants and land tax, the latter a product of surging property prices (Canberra Times, 28 June 2023).

Unsurprisingly, given the issue's prominence, the government chose to emphasise the budget's housing initiatives, announcing several ahead of the budget itself. These included a new $60 million fund to support social housing and build-to-rent projects, as well as an extra $233 million toward the government's existing goal of building 400 new public housing properties (Canberra Times, 21 June 2023). The budget also estimated the cost of a new hospital for the Calvary site at one billion dollars, although most of these costs would be incurred after 2025 (Canberra Times, 28 June 2023).