Barnett Oration

The F. Oswald Barnett Oration seeks to acknowledge the contribution Barnett made to eliminating poor housing conditions. It also seeks to remind contemporary society that the task is not yet complete - housing poverty remains a social problem of the highest significance. (Read more).

The Centre for Public Policy is one of the sponsors of the 12th Annual F. Oswald Barnett Oration, 2004. You can download past Orations by clicking here).

Managing Urban Change: the need for diversity and choice in housing and urban development

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Keynote Speaker

In her inaugural F. Oswald Barnett Oration in 1994, Renate Howe points to the influence of Barnett on the practice of urban planning in Australia , through both his writings and his involvement with the Housing Commission of Victoria.  His influence extended to the national level, through the Commonwealth Housing Commission in its 1944 report, which cited the work of the Housing Commission of Victoria, and through his contribution to the urban planning policies of the Department of Post-War reconstruction.

Barnett's advocacy of idealised large-scale suburbs made up of neighbourhood units focussed around a primary school and community centre directly or otherwise influenced the post-war planning and development of Canberra, especially through the work of its Chief Planner for many years, Peter Harrison, who, with his staff, successfully introduced these ideas to the structure of Canberra's expansion beyond Walter Burley Griffin, and into its succession of new towns.

These proposals were built on the assumption that the two-parent household with children was the household 'norm' in a rapidly expanding Australian population, and that communities of such households were the Australian ideal.

Half a century and more later, we face a much more diverse demography in our cities and towns, and we no longer have a single household 'norm' as the dominant social or urban development paradigm, upon which planning and development decisions and housing policies can be based.

Instead, in the face of demographic, cultural, behavioural and economic diversity we are less able than ever before to predict comfortably the urban and housing needs of the future, across society.  Our responses in planning and housing policies, and in managing and responding to market changes, need to be more flexible, more adaptable, and to create more opportunities for choice.

This reality creates controversy when embedded in urban strategies such as Melbourne 2030, as change and flexibility butt up against committed suburban defenses of the status quo.  Nonetheless if we are to offer a 'fair go' to coming generations we must, from the national level down, face the responsibility of challenging that status quo, being inventive and creative, and leading our urban development and housing policies in new directions.

Respondent

Centre for Public Policy
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