How can anyone not love the Canberra city skyline? Photo: Michelle Kroll.
If a Chinese immigrant came to Australia and constantly whinged about how sterile and dull it was compared to his home country, locals would quickly tell him to go elsewhere.
But for some reason, many people who move to Canberra from interstate seem entitled to constantly criticise it while benefiting from its comfortable lifestyle. Moreover, locals seem to tolerate the bagging out of their hometown.
A few weeks ago, I penned an opinion piece highlighting how the capital had improved over the past 30 years and observed that it was now the second-best city in the world in terms of liveability, according to the Oxford Economics Global Cities Index.
You would think that would be a source of pride for residents to celebrate, but the article attracted dozens of negative comments across various platforms from people who chose to move here.
A few readers asked if April Fool’s had come early, and one guy said I was delusional. Many listed all the bad things about the town they have to put up with every day.
“Betoota Advocate has gotten a lot worse lately,” said a Reddit user on my article.
Is there any other first-world locality where people are so scathing about where they reside?
Living in Canberra, I found it was common for interstate migrants to constantly harp on about how terrible this place can be compared to where they were from – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or even Adelaide.
Their main problems were that it’s too cold in winter, too far from the coast, housing was too expensive, nightlife was sparse, services were stretched, and public transport was limited.
While these are all valid concerns, they need to be balanced by the many benefits of the city, which are perhaps best explained by the many outsiders who hate it.
Columnist Miranda Devine summed up what a lot of Aussies think about Canberra in an opinion piece for The Daily Telegraph many years ago.
“Canberra is a cashed-up boom town on steroids, with cranes all over the skyline, boasting the highest paid citizens of any city in Australia,” she wrote.
“Smug, entitled public servants live high on the hog, with taxpayer-funded massages, business-class travel, gentleman’s hours, high-class restaurants, cafes on every corner, and a furious resistance to Barnaby Joyce’s sensible idea of decentralising the federal bureaucracy to repopulate dying country towns.
“There’s a saying in Canberra for real estate: you buy Liberal and sell Labor. In other words, the capital, and its house prices, boom under profligate Labor and contract under the fiscally responsible Liberals.”
You can feel the jealousy radiating off her words. After the weekend’s election result, it’s clear things are only going to get better for us.
If you combine what she says with the fact Canberra has ample green spaces, few traffic hassles and ample live sport on offer, you can understand why we’ve become the envy of the nation.
If you can’t appreciate all that, then remember, it’s not compulsory to live here. To quote Pauline Hanson – love it or leave.
