Canberra reflects nation of confident go-getters

The Australian capital of Canberra is a beautiful, leafy city.

If you want to get a feel for the difference between New Zealand and Australia then head for Canberra.

"Australia," says the Herald's veteran Canberra correspondent Greg Ansley, "sees itself as a significant country with a real role in the world and they build with a sense of vision.

"New Zealand sees itself as a small country at the bottom of the world and has no sense of being a major global player - though we actually do contribute a fair bit - and we tend to put up whatever will get by for now."

That is obvious everywhere in Australia - think of the difference between the iconic Sydney Opera House and Auckland's utilitarian Aotea Centre - but nowhere more so than in the capital, Canberra.

It's fashionable to sneer at Canberra as a dull, artificially created city. But in fact it is a beautiful, leafy city packed with magnificent museums, fascinating art galleries, lovely parks and impressive public buildings. And there's a pretty good night-life and some great restaurants, too.

But one of the best reasons for going there is to get a feel for what it means to be an Australian today and how that differs from being a New Zealander.

Perhaps the most dramatic contrast between attitudes on either side of the Tasman is in the two National War Memorials.

Our National War Memorial, in Wellington, has just been enlarged by the unveiling of the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior brought back from the battlefields of France, but it remains a decidedly humble affair parked on the side of a busy Wellington street.

It's all very different in Canberra where Anzac Parade is one of the focal points of the city, and it consists of a whole avenue of memorials to different services and various wars, leading from the waters of Lake Burley Griffin to the magnificent Australian War Memorial building set in a leafy park.

It's worth a stroll around the parade to see the memorials, a dozen in all, including the twin arches of the New Zealand Memorial built in 2001 - ironically, a more impressive memorial than the one we've got at home - the evocative statues, interesting sculptures and carefully contrived symbolism.

The red gravel of the centre strip evokes the desert - it was also chosen because the crunching sound it makes when walked on is reminiscent of the noise made the boots in a military parade - and it is flanked by the grey walls of timber from gum trees.

Growing in the planter boxes is a New Zealand hebe, autumn glory, chosen to provide a colourful contrast and to symbolise the Anzac connection.

The memorial building at the head of this parade has been named as Australia's best tourist attraction for three consecutive years and it is simply wonderful.

It is a combination of museum, with amazing displays of the equipment of war, including a Lancaster bomber and a midget submarine, and some wonderful dioramas of significant battles; theatre, with superb films, videos and sound and light shows telling the stories of conflict; and memorial, with a moving Hall of Memory, the poignant Roll of Honour and the stirring Hall of Valour.

It's not a glorification of war - indeed, one of the dioramas, showing a sergeant sitting in the mud of Flanders, surrounded by bloodshed and destruction, his head in his hands, is the strongest evocation of the futility, despair and horror of battle I've seen - but a powerful, often uncomfortable, statement of what war has meant to Australia.

There's a similar contrast between the parliaments of New Zealand and Australia.

Ours is an economical, practical - and, I think, strangely appealing - combination of what was already there and what was available at the right price: the old ornate General Assembly Library, the neo-classical Parliament itself, the peculiar hump of the Beehive on the end and the utilitarian steel and glass office buildings out the back.

But Australia's Parliament House, opened in 1988 to celebrate the bicentenary of European settlement, is a conscious statement of national identity and pride, built on a hill chosen as the focal point of Canberra, and, like the war memorial, redolent with symbolism.

Part of that symbolism is undoubtedly its sheer size: 224,000 sq m and 4500 rooms, with separate wings for the senate and house of representatives, joined by a central foyer and hall.

The design is clearly intended to make an impact: construction involved removing thousands of tonnes of earth from Capital Hill, erecting the building and then putting the earth back on top, creating a lofty hill topped with what is claimed - though I have my doubts - to be the tallest flagpole in the world.

The layout and materials were again chosen with an eye to their symbolic value: in the forecourt outside is a huge Aboriginal mosaic, surrounded by the red desert, green grass and rippling waters which make up the country; in the foyer inside the marble and timber was selected to speak of Europe, from which most settlers came.

The building is filled with specially purchased artefacts and works of art: among them a huge tapestry (20m by 9m) of a eucalypt forest, an equally large painting of the opening of the first Australian Parliament in Melbourne in 1901, a magnificent coat of arms sculpted in silver, one of four official copies of the Magna Carta made in 1297 and a set of marquetry panels inlaid with designs of Australian flora.

All of this is surrounded by 23ha of landscaped grounds which look down on Canberra's countless other national buildings set amid parks, gardens and artificial lakes.

The setting probably doesn't affect the calibre of the speeches or the quality of the laws produced by Australian politicians but it is undeniably impressive.

The National Museum of Australia is, similarly, unashamedly devoted to building nationhood. Opened in 2001, it draws some of its ideas from Te Papa - and like Te Papa has been criticised for being more of a theme park than a museum - but is far more narrowly focused, being "devoted to the stories of Australia and Australians, exploring the key issues, events and people that have shaped and influenced our nation".

Its five permanent exhibitions look at the first Australians, the peopling of Australia since 1788, the relationship between people and land in Australia, the personal stories of 50 Australians whose lives represent aspects of the national story, and symbols of Australia. Of those, it is the exhibition of symbols that is likely to be most intriguing to New Zealand eyes, not least because many of them will be all too familiar (indeed one, the heart of Phar Lap, is very definitely from New Zealand).

Some are formal symbols, like the digger and Anzac Day, the coat of arms and a giant arch built for a royal tour of yesteryear, the flag and Parliament house.

But others are symbols of day-to-day life, like Vegemite, the Victa mower and the Hills Hoist clothes line, 160 artefacts featuring kangaroos, the unique language of 'Strine and Dame Edna Everage's glasses.

To me it speaks of a nation that is at once brash, funny, inventive, increasingly sophisticated, confident, forward-looking, sure of its place in the world, assertive and not afraid to be itself.

Would a tourist to Wellington get that impression of New Zealand?

Canberra also shows the pride Australia takes in its art.

New Zealand's old National Gallery was swallowed up in Te Papa and is only now emerging in the excellent Toi Te Papa: Art of the Nation exhibition being developed in a small and not particularly suitable corner.

Australia's National Gallery is a magnificent building with an extraordinary range of art, including a superb display of Aboriginal artefacts, paintings of the colonial era, an impressive collection of international art, modern art and, outside, a wonderful sculpture garden.

As if that was not enough, there is also a fascinating National Portrait Gallery in the Old Parliament Buildings, showing not just the big names but also the ordinary folk who have built Australia, recorded in sketch, painting and photograph.

Add the National Library, the National Archives, the National Science and Technology Centre (the Questacon), ScreenSound Australia, the Australian Institute of Sport, the High Court of Australia and the National Capital Exhibition - all of which have impressive public displays - and there's certainly no shortage of things to see.

Of course there is a risk that seeing all these magnificent nationalist monuments produced by our bigger, richer, more confident neighbour could give a New Zealander a slight inferiority complex.

But, happily, there is an antidote readily available if you take a drive around the embassy district of Canberra.

Most embassies are expensive statements of national pride.

The American Embassy, as you'd expect, is huge and heavily fortified. Countries like Papua New Guinea, India, Thailand and Malaysia have erected amazing buildings in their own unique national style.

One of the eastern embassies - I think it was Romania but I couldn't identify the flag - looked like Castle Dracula.

The Chinese Government brought over hundreds of craftsmen to build an ornate palace like something from the Forbidden City (and then, by all accounts, stripped it all back again after word got around that Australian security people had hidden microphones in the walls).

And just over the road from the Chinese palace is the simple, elegant house which is the New Zealand High Commission.

It's easy to identify because on the grass outside a herd of corrugated iron cows is feeding.

And which of these statements of national pride do you suppose attracts the most attention?

Bigger isn't necessarily better.

* Jim Eagles visited Canberra as a guest of Tourism New South Wales and Air New Zealand.

Getting there

You can fly Air New Zealand to Sydney or Melbourne and take a Qantas flight to Canberra for $286 one way (plus taxes and surcharges).

Attractions

Australian War Memorial www.awm.gov.au
Parliament www.aph.gov.au
Old Parliament House www.oldparliamenthouse.gov.au
National Museum www.nma.gov.au
National Gallery www.nga.gov.au
National Portrait Gallery www.portrait.gov.au
National Library www.nla.gov.au
National Archives www.naa.gov.au
National Science and Technology Centre www.questacon.edu.au
ScreenSound Australia www.screensound.gov.au
Australian Institute of Sport www.aisport.com.au/tours
High Court of Australia www.hcourt.gov.au
National Capital Exhibition www.nationalcapital.gov.au