Architect and new parliamentarian Elizabeth Watson-Brown has used her maiden speech to call for an end to privately delivered public infrastructure.
The member for the inner-Brisbane seat of Ryan was elected as a Greens candidate and is only the second representative of that seat not from the Liberal-National Party.
In her maiden speech, Watson-Brown reflected on her more than 40-year career in architecture marked by historic Queensland flood events.
“We arrived at UQ in the month of the 1974 floods. Much of the campus had been under water. Our first project as fledgling architects was to go and document the flood damage to houses. Of course, what we really saw was huge damage to people, to lives. That was heartbreaking, that was salutary. And since then, I have experienced two more ‘unprecedented’ major Brisbane river floods in Ryan.”
Watson-Brown established her own architectural practice in 1981 as one of only a handful of women to do so at that time in Australia.
“Throughout this whole time, whether in my own projects or on government advisory panels and juries, my design and lived values have always been to prioritize the needs of individual people and their community, and the specifics and the environment and the place.
“I have always said to my students and staff, what we’re doing is really important. We’re building the infrastructure of the lives we share. We’d better do it well. We’d better do it responsively and responsibly,” Watson-Brown continued.
The parliamentarian designed the first purpose-built refuge in Queensland for women and children escaping domestic violence.
“It’s these values – prioritizing the needs of the community and the sustainability and amenity of life, of our climate and environment – that I bring to represent my Ryan community in this chamber.”
Watson-Brown was appointed the Australian Greens spokesperson for infrastructure, transport and sustainable cities on 17 June. She told the House of Representatives, “In my career I’ve seen first-hand the problems caused by the belief that public infrastructure should be developed and owned by private corporations.
“This has a profoundly negative effect on our ability to deliver for everyday people and communities.
“My experience of public-private partnerships is that the private is what undermines the benefit to the public, as do planning regulation that favour private developers and profits.
“So I’m here to say that public infrastructure should be in public hands, and that we need a public-led approach to the way we develop our cities.
“This is particularly urgent in the context of the climate crisis – and the inequality crisis [that are] – so closely integrated.
“Australia’s cities actually house about 85 percent of our population and generate the majority of our carbon pollution. Without exception, Australian cities were established at places of great natural resources and beauty. Our reliance on private cars is rapidly obliterating these natural assets with unsustainable outward sprawl and inward traffic congestion and concrete chaos.”
She continued, “The climate crisis, caused by the greed of coal, oil and gas industries, now continually tosses up unheard-of temperatures, floods, fires, droughts and heatwaves.
“Our buildings and cities should protect us from these attacks, but they only make them worse. Urban hardening multiplies flash-flooding effects, while de-vegetation accelerates urban heat island effects that amplify deadly heat waves.
“We must design our settlements to accommodate and nurture everyone to resist natural hazards, but also to allow us to flee safely when the catastrophe inevitably strikes.
“In our last unprecedented devastating flood, whole suburbs in Ryan were trapped – people with nowhere to go, and no help when they needed it most. We need to do better and we need to do it fast.”
Watch Elizabeth Watson-Brown’s full maiden speech here or read it here.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
