PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH AT LAND COMMISSION CEREMONY,
HAPPY VALLEY, ADELAIDE
11. 4.
Mr. Chairman, the Deputy Premier, Ministers, Commissioners,
Representatives, our colleagues in the Australian, South
Australian Parliament and Local Council, Ladies and Gentlemen-
I don't mind how often I come to functions like this because
this function is the forerunner of many which will take place,
we hope, throughout Australia and which will have two very
great advantages. One is, that the old Australian dream of
having a house of your own, will be more within the reach of
people because the cost of the land, the biggest single
component of the cost of having a house, will be kept to the
minimum. And the second feature is that people who come to
sub-divisions, like this, developed by the Land Commissions,
can be sure that all the facilities that the Local Council,
the State Government, the Federal Government provide, will
be all co-ordinated and supplied at the same time. There will
be, that is, a good block of land at cost with all services
and then with all the community facilities which the three tiers
provide. It's been most gratifying the way the community has
been involved in the planning of this first sub-division of any
Land Commission in Australia. Their advice has been sought,
it has been given. It is a very good example of full community
involvement.
It is very appropriate that the first Land Commission, the
first sub-division of any Land Commission should be here in
South Australia. There is an historical reason for my saying
that, and that is that Adelaide was the first piece of good
town planning in Australia. It was a magnificent foundatfon
that William Light gave for this city. And it is appropriate
enough that the Premier is over near the area he came from,
Penang, where his father set out another beautiful city,
another beautiful locality.
The other reason why it is so appropriate that we should be
having this opening in South Australia, is that the Government
of South Australia was the first to respond to the proposals
that my Government was making in this regard.
The creation of Land Commissions was proposed at the Federal
election in 1972 and it came from two very obvious propositions.
One is, that the Federal Government had greater financial
resources than the State Governments, and secondly, that the
State Governments had a jurisdiction in land matters which
the Federal Government did not have. So by bringing together
the Federal finances and the State jurisdictions, it would be
possible we thought, to solve one of the great social evils
in Australia today, and do so in a proper economic and environmental
context.
The Federal Government cannot make laws, it cannot administer
laws, in regard to land use. The State Governments can,
and the Local Government bodies, semi-Government authorities
which they have created, play a big role in that as well.
But the limiting factor was that these days, no State
Government, no authorities created by State Governments,
had sufficient finances to provide all the services together
and to acquire the land. Now the Federal Government, while
not having the limitless funds that many people suggest or
suppose, nevertheless did have sufficient financial resources
to make it possible to acquire the land in good time and to
provide all the services which Governments have to provide
at the one time.
Whatever our idealogies, whatever our philosophies, we all
accept that Government authorities of one sort or another,
Federal, State, Regional, have to provide things like roads
and kerbing and guttering. They have to provide sewerage,
they have to provide telephones, they have to provide most
of the schools and most of the hospitals and most of the
public transport and the great evil which has arisen in
Australia since the war, where we have very large cities
and where a greater proportion of our population lives in
cities than is the case in practically any nation in the
world. In Australia we just haven't hitherto coped. Individuals
can't do it by themselves. Families can't. Communities
can't. It requires to bring together all the people
with the necessary responsibilities, authority and jurisdiction,
and that's what we have aimed to do in these Land Commissions,
and before 1973 was out, the basic legislation was passed and
my Minister, Tom Uren, and his counterparts in South Australia,
were able to make the arrangements under that legislation.
Now Adelaide isn't the largest city in Australia. It maybe
the best planned, but it's not the largest, never likelp to
be the largest. But the ways things are going it's likely
to continue to be the best planned, the best serviced. And
I suppose it not too invidious to say here, by way of comparison,
what still has to be done in the larger cities in Australia
because Sydney and Melbourne still haven't been able to secure
the services which are now being provided for new home seekers,
new home purchasers, in Adelaide. We have made the financial
agreement with New South Wales, not without some difficulty,
but we still haven't got a Commission. And then in Victoria,
we have an undertaking to have an Urban Land Council by the
end of Jdne next but nothing really has been done there. Now
it's a great pity that this time is being lost because it means
that thousands of families, in Sydney and Melbourne, are not
able to realise their hopes yet and where they use the existing
facilities that are made available for home seekers, they will
do so at a greater cost and they will get the blocks of land
less serviced with fewer amenities than they would otherwise
get. Now South Australia, true to its tradition of proper
town planning right from the outset, is leading Australia
again in proper town planning, not only in the square mile
in the centre, but right round Adelaide, in all the areas
3.
from which people will commute into the city, in all
the areas where they will have community activities,
there will be accommodation and recreation and occupation
and it's been brought about because there has been, in
South Australia, ahead of anywhere else in Australia,
the necessary consultation and co-operation between the
Australian Government, the State Government and the
regional authorities.
It is a model of what can be done, this is not just a
dream, it's not just a theory, it is practical and it is
real and I am delighted, Mr. Deputy Premier, to be seeing
on an occasion like this, the culmination of the efforts
that you, your Premier, your Ministers, my Minister,
many of our colleagues and I, have sought to achieve
over the years. Your Premier, you yourself, I would
have counted as friends for well over a decade and it's
a proud moment when we are able to show to the whole of
the people 6f Australia and particularly to the people
of your State and your capital, what can be done by co-operation
beltween all the spheres of Government in Australia.
Individuals can't do it. They must depend for some action,
some initiative, some co-operation by those whom they elect
to serve them in councils and the South Australian Parliament
and the Australian Parliament and we are able to deliver
the goods now.
This area, these blocks will be $ 1,000 or more cheaper
than comparable blocks in the Adelaide metropolitan area.
They will be fully serviced. The Australian Departments,
I am happy to say, are co-operating in this effort~ and,
not only will there be the basic services, there will also
be some of the necessary amenities.
We want to see the people who come to live in virgin lands
in beautiful, fresh, new settings like this, and so many
of the natural features have been preserved. They will also
be able to get those things that any community wants and
which hitherto we have had to wait for generations to secure.
There will be, we believe, in the near future, proper
community centres in all these areas cultural, sporting,
and so on, and for those who have to stay closest to home,
in their . early years, I am now able to unveil a plaque
in the playground and in doing so I would like to express
the very great pleasure that the boys and girls who are
born and raised in this area will be able to grow up in
an ideal environment and the people who you have elected
in the various fields to serve you, are very happy to meet
so many of you and to be at your service, able to deliver
the goods in the way, I believe we are showing the whole
of Australia that it is possible to do.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm not sure that when I get to
the plaque I'll be able to speak as loudly as for you
all to hear. But I have to leave the microphone, so
what I'm going to do over there is unveil the plaque
I don't know what the wording is. This is always a hazard
in this job. You sometimes take away some screen and
thb Sun cartoon or even something offensive or indecent.
Coming to South Australia I suppose I can do it with
complete safety and assurance. Everything over ' 73,
' 74, ' 75 one's been able to co-operate with South
Australia in complete assurance and safety. So sight
unseen, I'm now going in this distinguished representative
gathering to unveil a plaque for the playground in the
first sub-division opened by any Land Commission anywhere
in Australia. was unveiled by me on the occasion of the opening of
the first sub-division of the South Australian Land
Commission, llth April, 1975.