Oaks Estate Residents Association president Fiona McGregor and Inner South Canberra Community Council chair Colin Walters. Photo: James Coleman.
“When I first came to live here, there used to be a T-shirt that was sold here that showed a picture of the railway track and writing on it that said: ‘Oaks Estate? Where’s that?’ That’s a bit of an indication of what people think.”
Fiona McGregor is president of the Oaks Estate Residents Association and a long-time resident of what’s often described as “Canberra’s forgotten suburb”.
Technically called a village, similar to Tharwa, Oaks Estate is tucked between the Queanbeyan railway line and the Molonglo River as a sort of island, so it’s not too surprising most people wouldn’t realise it’s actually part of the ACT’s Kurrajong electorate, along with Ainslie, Dickson, Kingston and Narrabundah.
All up, it measures 40 hectares and houses about 350 people. But it has an oversized problem.
In the past year, a couple walking down one of the village’s main streets were shot at by a passing car, a man was “smashed in the face with a hammer” in his own home, and a man had part of his finger removed by a samurai sword following a dispute with a neighbour.
And data from ACT Policing reveals there were 25 recorded offences in Oaks Estate over the first two quarters of 2024.
This week, Independents for Canberra, the Canberra Liberals and ACT Greens joined forces to take the residents’ case to the ACT Government and ask for more police presence, better bus services, and a revamp of the village’s 70 social housing properties.
But what if we just palmed it off to Queanbeyan? It turns out we’re by no means the first to ask this.
Oaks Estate started life in 1835 as ‘The Oaks’, an outpost of the Duntroon estate owned by Canberra’s pioneer and property mogul Robert Campbell. He constructed the Oaks Estate Homestead, which still stands today, albeit as a private property.
Parts of The Oaks were also used as Queanbeyan’s first burial site until the Riverside Cemetery opened in 1846. In fact, police were called out to the area in 1991 when skeletal remains were accidentally uncovered by a backhoe operator digging a stormwater trench.
In 1908, when it came time to carve out a national capital territory, Oaks Estate was – in a way – caught in the crosshairs. The northern blocks were absorbed into the ACT, while the southern blocks became part of Queanbeyan.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the secretary of the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) – the body charged by the Federal Government with care of the ACT – thought the area would be more work than its worth and pushed for all properties on the ACT side to be demolished.
The entrance to Oaks Estate. Photo: James Coleman.
Later on, when this wasn’t successful, he argued that NSW should have Oaks Estate.
By the late 1930s, the first resident complaints were crossing bureaucrats’ desks. A member of the ACT Advisory Council described Oaks Estate as “the Cinderella of the territory” and called for better government services.
Minister for the Interior John McEwen later came to the table and championed the water tank that now stands on the same street that now bears his name. However, it seems there was a spelling mistake along the way because the street name is spelt ‘McEwan Avenue’.
Two decades passed before members of the Advisory Council revisited the idea of merging Oaks Estate with Queanbeyan. The NCDC secretary chimed in again at this point, describing the area as a “continual and increasing embarrassment”.
In 1962, the NCDC commissioned an official study into the matter but found itself stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It concluded the area’s low housing density made the expense of providing city services “too high to be justifiable” but increasing housing density would “ruin its rural character and increase land rents”.
Ms McGregor has lived in Oaks Estate for more than 20 years now, and her response to the Queanbeyan question is unequivocal.
“Queanbeyan is the one of the fastest growing regions in the whole of NSW … and the council is not wealthy,” she says.
“Like most NSW councils, it’s struggling financially. What would be the incentive for the Queanbeyan council to take over Oaks Estate and all our public housing and try and manage what’s going on here?”
Office of the Surveyor-General aerial photograph of Oaks Estate, 1951 to 1953. Photo: ArchivesACT.
Housing ACT currently looks after 70 properties in Oaks Estate, or up to 47 per cent of the village’s total number of dwellings.
A spokesperson for the government told Region the majority are head-leased to St Vincent de Paul Society Canberra/Goulburn, Havelock House and Everyman Australia. In the past two financial years, the ACT has provided Vinnies alone with more than $900,000 for its ‘Community Inclusion Program’ at Oaks Estate.
“The Community Inclusion Program aims to build community cohesion through initiatives such as pro-active welfare checks and activities such as BBQs and regular outings,” the spokesperson said.
However, as part of their latest advocacy, Ms McGregor and other residents argue that the ACT Government needs to spend a lot more – well above what Queanbeyan could provide.
“The ACT Government owns the properties. The properties are a problem. Their location is a problem. They’re very old. They’re not fit for purpose.”
In an interview with ABC radio earlier this week, Chief Minister Andrew Barr promised Oaks Estate residents the government would look into the area’s “specific issues”.
“I’m comfortable that everyone in Canberra is safe relative to any other city in Australia or indeed elsewhere in the world, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t occasional incidents and issues that would be concerning for people’s personal safety.”
