By Sue Bull
CANBERRA — Not content with demolishing public sector jobs and services, the Howard government has decided to demolish public buildings in Canberra, supposedly to get the economy going. Sound bizarre and irrational? But wait ... guess who gets to build all the new buildings?: private businesses.
The demolition of public buildings has become part of the spectacle in Canberra (remember the tragically botched Canberra hospital demolition?). On November 18, however, the federal government escalated the pace of destruction by announcing that it would demolish, refurbish, sell or mothball another 12 public buildings to try to take the pressure off the sagging market for office space (produced by massive cuts to public service funding), and to inject an estimated $100 million into the construction industry.
Cameron Offices, for example, which are only 21 years old, will be demolished and then rebuilt by the private sector at a cost of $60 million to the taxpayer.
A string of other developments have also been approved by the Liberal ACT government. Extensions to four suburban shopping centres and two projects in Civic will replace community centres, parking areas, skate-boarding areas and other socially useful facilities with more shops, hotels, cinemas, supermarkets and anything else that will make a profit.
Everyone, except chief minister Kate Carnell and the members of the Master Builders' Association of the ACT, is upset. Even the Australian Institute of Architects claims that Cameron Offices should be added to the Australian Heritage Commission's register, saying "its innovative planning and partially achieved urban aspirations make it one of the most important buildings of its time".
With ACT elections to be held on February 21, the ACT and federal governments need to appear to be doing something in Canberra. Their "solution" is to make massive cuts to the public sector, package off huge numbers of public servants, empty out the buildings, demolish them and hand them to the private sector to rebuild, thereby creating new short-term jobs.
But as the already too few public services, facilities and jobs are destroyed, the private sector will not rebuild them in a way that puts people before profits. The public money being handed over to the private sector to "rebuild" Canberra would be better spent on improving health, education, social welfare, child-care and public transport services, which benefit the majority of people.
[Sue Bull is the Democratic Socialist candidate for Molonglo.]