While Australia’s federal system has often been described in these terms, this was actually how Paul Keating pointedly referred to the seat of our federation. Beyond being the butt of the same pithy line, the parallels between Canberra and Australia’s federal system are limited.
Australia’s federal system continues to be an effective means of dispersing political power and ensuring that far-flung regions are not at the mercy of a distant central government. Our federal system manages to do this relatively well despite a severe vertical fiscal imbalance that sees the states tasked with responsibilities they do not have the funds to effectively discharge.
Notwithstanding its recent ill-health, Australia’s federal system is therefore a good example of the way federalism promotes democratic accountability in geographically large countries. In fact, the only comparably large country without a federal system is authoritarian China.
By contrast, Canberra fails as a capital city. Canberra is all machinery of government and little else. Other capital cities are repositories of world history (Athens, Mexico City and Rome); centres of global commerce (Tokyo, London and Seoul); and hubs of cultural innovation (Paris, Beijing and Berlin). Canberra is none of these things.
Such are Canberra’s shortfalls that even consummate diplomats struggle to mouth the pro-forma laudatory lines. The question inevitably asked of members of the diplomatic corps in Canberra is ‘How have you found your time in Canberra so far?’ The response is inevitably at best attempted enthusiasm.
To be fair, Canberra arguably does have some of the features suitable for a distinctly Australian capital city. If Washington D.C.’s ubiquitous Grecian columns are symbolic of the grandeur of the American Republic, then the unimposing and eucalyptus bushland-girt Australian Parliament captures something of Australia’s unpretentious egalitarian ethos.
Be that as it may, surely we are confident enough in our own sense of Australianness to not need to fabricate an urban representation of it midway between two organically produced Australian cities. As a Canberra emigrant seeking naturalisation in Sydney, my response can only be in the affirmative.
Benjamin Herscovitch is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.