The good society?
Last week’s essay argued that the purpose of government was to enable people to flourish.
In a lot of ways, we are incredibly lucky to live in Canberra because it’s got all the makings of being a great city, a place where everyone can flourish. But having potential and living up to it aren’t the same thing.
And that’s the challenge we have here in Canberra.
Canberra’s strengths
If you were to design a society where people would be able to flourish, you’d probably endow it with a lot of the characteristics Canberra enjoys.
One would be ensuring that people have good incomes. Canberra is fortunate to enjoy very high average incomes, both by international and Australian standards. According to the ABS, average cash earnings are $1,820 per week in the ACT compared with $1,611 nationally. And around half of local households are in the highest-income quintile nationally, which shows the financial advantage Canberrans enjoy.
Another would be ensuring that people are well educated. ABS data shows that Canberra does well here too: almost half (46%) of Canberrans have a bachelor’s degree (or higher) compared with 34% nationally. The difference is even more stark with postgraduate qualifications: 20% in Canberra compared with 12% nationally. So we are a community with a lot of knowledge and expertise.
A third would be a strong sense of community, including high levels of public trust and integrity. The ABS General Social Survey shows the ACT enjoys higher than average performance on a whole range of indicators, including trust in others, community involvement, and family and community support.
And all that’s before you think about the cultural, environmental, and other lifestyle factors that so many Canberrans value about living in the ACT.
Given all of this, it is no surprise that Canberra outperforms so many other places on various international ‘liveability’ measures, like Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index. We are privileged to have a city like Canberra to call home, where we have all the necessary ingredients to enable people to lead meaningful, flourishing lives.
Our challenges
Despite all of our advantages and privileges, if we are really honest with ourselves, we might admit that we aren’t actually flourishing here in Canberra. There’s a substantial gap between what we could be and what we are.
That’s a big claim, but there’s plenty of evidence which suggests Canberrans aren’t living the good life, despite all of our advantages.
The most obvious piece of evidence is the cost of living, particularly housing affordability. Like most Australian cities, housing in Canberra is somewhere between severely and impossibly unaffordable.[1] This is the inevitable result of many years where population growth has outpaced new housing supply, putting pressure on prices and forcing first home buyers out of the market. Canberra should be a place where the cost of living is manageable and housing is affordable – but the reality is that it is not.
Secondly, Canberrans aren’t enjoying the quality of life you might expect. The GSS data shows that Canberrans feel more stressed and rushed for time than other Australians[2]. We have more mental health challenges – such as depression and anxiety – than the rest of the country. And more Canberrans are now moving and building their lives in other states than interstate residents moving here. People don’t usually choose to move away from the places where they are flourishing.
Finally, despite the depth of local capability and expertise, combined with government spending of more than $20,000 per person per year[3] – second only to the NT – Canberrans are hardly blessed with world-class services. Our education, healthcare, law enforcement, and transportation systems generally perform worse than other jurisdictions. It’s the opposite outcome to what you would expect of Canberra, and of what Canberrans deserve.
Each of these issues is a problem in its own right. But they are also symptoms of the deeper problem that Canberra is not a place where our people are flourishing.
And these issues are getting worse. The gap between what we should be and what we are is getting larger: the quality of those underperforming public services is deteriorating; inflation, interest rates, and housing affordability are worsening; mental health challenges are being exacerbated; and the ACT’s fiscal position means taxes are rising while public services are diminishing.
Too many Canberrans struggle to lead good, flourishing lives – and the number is growing.
Unrealised potential
The gap between we what should be and what we are – our failure to ensure Canberrans are leading good lives – is our own responsibility. It is a result of the choices we have made, rather than any external factors which have forced this outcome on us.
It could be argued that Canberra is not unique: after all, the whole country has struggled to enjoy any economic growth for the last 20 years, and the impact of the pandemic, inflation, and high interest rates have been felt everywhere, not just in Canberra.
This is all true – but anyone who has spent time in our other capitals has seen how different things can be. Brisbane is more vibrant and dynamic than ever. Sydney spent the last decade delivering world-class infrastructure. Melbourne seems determined to outbuild the most YIMBY cities in the world. None of these places are perfect but they are working to improve outcomes for their communities, enabling them to flourish in ways we are not. Our unmet potential is our own responsibility.
This has two important implications.
First, it means our government is not fulfilling its core duty. It may be achieving other, valuable goals but not its core purpose: not the essential thing that is why we have a government in the first place.
Second, if our failure to flourish is a result of our own choices – including the government we have chosen – then the outcome is not fixed. We can make different decisions and enjoy different outcomes.
We can choose to flourish.
Conclusion
Our purpose with Building a Better Canberra is to make the case that the ACT can be better than it is: it can be a place where Canberrans flourish and can enjoy better, more meaningful lives than they currently do. It’s a choice we can make – and it’s a choice we should make.
Next week’s essay will start to explore what needs to change for us to enjoy the lives we deserve.
[1] Demographia publishes a global Housing Affordability Index that includes Australian cities. Canberra is too small to be included but our attempt to replicate their methodology suggests a score of 7.3, meaning Canberra’s housing market is ‘severely unaffordable’ and one of the 20 least affordable in the world. (We’ll have more on this in a later post.)
[2] This may be why a top objective of past and present ACT economic development strategies is about ‘giving people back time’.
[3] The ACT Government will spend more than $10 billion this year on a population of around 485,000 people.