There's a sickness in the heart of our city, and you can see it on any walk through Civic: graffiti, boarded-up windows, and everyday Canberrans feeling unsafe. As someone who's spent a decade promoting Canberra to the world in a tourism context, I'm saddened by what's become of our CBD.
And it isn't just a feeling. It's documented. A City Renewal Authority audit recorded 612 incidents of drinking, abuse, vandalism and threats over just 22 days, in broad daylight between 8am and 8pm. Ironically, one of the government's own observers had to be removed from the job after being threatened.
Only after the problem hit the headlines did ACT Policing roll out its "CBD Safe" patrols in June: the second such blitz in under a year, and, like the last, set to pack up in a few weeks.
But here's what too few will say out loud: the hollowing out of our city isn't bad luck or the business cycle. It's the product of Labor decisions, local and federal. And the worst of it is being run out of the department of our Labor senator, Katy Gallagher.
Our city is emptying out. Office vacancy in Civic sits at 12 per cent. More than one in 10 floors stand dark, and on current trends, industry forecasts have it climbing towards 40 per cent by the end of the decade.
While the heart of our city declines, the government precinct at Barton is effectively full, with vacancy under 2 per cent. That gap is no accident. Under a federal Labor policy (run out of Senator Gallagher's own department, no less), any major new Commonwealth office lease must now meet a tough energy-efficiency rating: 5.5 stars today, rising to six stars and all-electric from this July.
Many of Civic's older towers simply can't comply. So thousands of public servants are being marched south of the lake into purpose-built premises, never mind the carbon cost of the new builds.
The Tax Office is moving to Barton, Foreign Affairs into a brand-new headquarters of its own, and ironically, even DCCEEW is "consolidating" out of Civic while the buildings they all leave behind are stranded (along with the embedded carbon).
The result is tens of thousands of square metres of office space sitting idle in the city centre, boarded up and vacant. Fewer workers mean fewer customers for our cafés and shops, more empty floors, and quieter streets. And quiet city streets become unsafe.
The two problems feed into each other, and they share a solution. Safe streets are busy streets. When there are people around - residents coming and going at all hours, lights on in the apartments above the shops, eyes on the street - crime has nowhere to hide. A city centre that empties at 5pm and falls silent on weekends invites trouble.
So here's what I'm fighting for:
First, make high-visibility policing permanent. "CBD Safe" is welcome, but a few weeks of extra patrols won't fix a problem that has been years in the making. Canberrans deserve a permanent, visible police presence in the city, not a press release every time things get bad enough to make the news.
Second, get people living in the city again. We have empty office towers and a housing shortage at the same time. But Canberra's Lease Variation Charge (LVC) - the 75 per cent tax developers pay to change what a building can be used for - makes converting offices into homes harder and much more expensive than it should be.
I'm backing a moratorium on the LVC for residential conversions in the CBD, with affordable housing built in. The government already hands out LVC discounts for affordable housing, so it knows the lever works. And I'm not alone: the property industry and major investors (including Canberra Airport's Capital Property Group, which is tipping $1.5 billion into the city) are calling for the CBD to be made a special economic zone, with incentives to convert tired, empty towers into homes, student housing and modern workplaces.
Everyone knows the LVC is barely raising a dollar in the CBD as it stands. So use the lever: get the cranes moving, build apartments, and bring residents - and the life they bring - back into the city.
Third, hit the brakes on the APS exodus. The federal government could act tomorrow: pause the drain of public-service jobs out of Civic until we understand what it is doing to our city. That is not too much to ask, given how fast the heart of our capital has declined on Labor's watch.
Use the pause to ask the obvious question: does it make sense to march departments into brand-new concrete-and-steel towers while the embodied carbon locked in the buildings they are abandoning remains, or is it simply government greenwashing? Senator Gallagher owes Canberrans an answer.
Federal Labor is forcing an exodus of workers from Civic. And the territory Labor government is standing in the way of repurposing the empty office buildings left behind into homes.
More people living in the city means more feet on the street, more trade for small businesses, and fewer dark corners for crime. It isn't complicated.
Our national capital deserves a CBD we can be proud of. As a hive of activity, to welcome visitors, and to show off to the world. Let's revive our CBD.
