Creative Director

So, today’s Canberra’s birthday?

March 12 2010

So, today’s Canberra’s birthday? Mmm, what does that mean exactly? It can’t mean the birth of the land, since that happened millions of years ago, pre-Gondwana even. And it isn’t dating the era when it was traditional owners exclusively caring for this land, that’s at least 20,000 years ago, nor even the arrival of inland settlers who started tending the land in the 1820s. No, with the aid of the excellent booklets produced by our historian Dr Dave Headon, I learn that 12 March is the day when the Foundation stones were formally laid to proclaim the site of a new national capital city for the still newly federated nation of Australia. This day truly commemorates the birth day of a city, but a city with influence far beyond its own borders.

On that day 97 years ago today, Prime Minister Andrew Fisher said:

“ Here on this spot, in the near future, and, I hope the distant future too, the best thoughts of Australia will be given expression to…I hope this City will be the seat of learning as well as of politics, and it will be also the home of art”

That rings loudly to me on a day when I reflect that Canberra has such a great reputation for education, including three major tertiary institutions, one of which is a university consistently listed among the best in the world, and that it remains the seat of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Not only do we have fine local musicians, writers, artists and artisans of all kinds (the kinds who regularly play in bands and the Canberra Symphony Orchestra or exhibit in the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery or the Glassworks) but the queues at the Australian National Gallery (for the Masterpieces from the Musee d’Orsay) prove that Canberra is also capable of hosting the finest of art from around the world. Fisher’s hopes are fulfilled.

This is my first Canberra Day in situ and I can’t help but feel genuinely excited about the journey we are now on as we head towards 2013, the 100th birthday, and that once-in-a-century opportunity to acknowledge the past, recognise the rich texture of Canberra at the start of the 21^st century, and ensure its ever-brighter future. Canberra has its detractors from time to time: they haven’t worked hard enough to understand this city, and I believe that after 2013 they will never see Canberra in the same way again.

As the Minister for Home Affairs, King O’Malley said on 12 March 1913:

“I have to ask honourable members to endeavour to regard [the federal Capital site] not as little Australians, but as big Australians….Yass-Canberra occupies one of the highest situations in New South Wales. I slept there in a tent last June, and I felt in the morning that I had awakened to a new world”

On a beautiful Autumn Day like today, I know exactly how he felt.

Robyn Archer
Creative Director
Centenary of Canberra

PS - Get Janet Jeffs’ recipe for the Canberra Cake and bake it now! Then eat it : it’s a delicious way to celebrate.