Camden, New South Wales - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Education

Camden is the location of research facilities for the veterinary and agricultural schools of the University of Sydney

University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

. The local government area has two public high schools, Camden High School and Elderslie High School, as well as eight Catholic and three Anglican schools.

Culture

The Camden Show is an annual event which combines amusement park

Amusement park

thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...

attractions with the elements of a state fair

State fair

A state fair is a competitive and recreational gathering of a U.S. state's population. It is a larger version of a county fair, often including only exhibits or competitors that have won in their categories at the more-local county fairs....

. Camden is served by two local radio stations, 2MCR

2MCR

2MCR-FM is a Community Radio station in Sydney's South West broadcasting on 100.3 FM. The station broadcast covers Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly Shire.Their location is at the Campbelltown RSL Club, Campbelltown, New South Wales.- History :...

and C91.3FM. Local newspapers are the Camden Advertiser, the District Reporter and the Macarthur Chronicle.

Demographics

In the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics

Australian Bureau of Statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It was created as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 of the Constitution of Australia...

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

, the suburb of Camden had a population of 3,166 people. Most families are couples with children (42%) or couples without (36%) with a small number of single parent families (20%). They live in detached houses (73%) and are mostly Australian born (82%) with those not born in Australia primarily from English speaking countries such as England (6%), New Zealand (1%) or Scotland (1%).

Notable residents

Steven Bradbury
Steven Bradbury
Steven John Bradbury OAM is a former Australian short track speed skater and four-time Olympian, who won the 1,000 m event at the 2002 Winter Olympics after all of his opponents were involved in a last corner pile-up...

, short track speed skater who won Australia's first Winter Olympics gold medal.
Rob Hirst
Rob Hirst
-External links:*******...

, drummer with the band Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil , were an Australian rock band from Sydney originally performing as Farm from 1972 with drummer Rob Hirst, bass guitarist Andrew James and keyboard player/lead guitarist Jim Moginie...

.
John Macarthur
John Macarthur (wool pioneer)
John Macarthur was a British army officer, entrepreneur, politician, architect and pioneer of settlement in Australia. Macarthur is recognised as the pioneer of the wool industry that was to boom in Australia in the early 19th century and become a trademark of the nation...

, father of the Australian wool industry.
Mat Mladin
Mat Mladin
Mathew "Mat" Mladin is a retired Australian professional motorcycle racer who last raced for Yoshimura Suzuki in the AMA Superbike series...

, world motorcycle champion.
Prof. Graeme Clark, inventor of the Bionic Ear.

Politics

Camden Council consists of nine councillors; three for each of the three wards. North Ward (Bringelly, Rossmore, Leppington, Cobbitty, Oran Park, Catherine Field, Harrington Park, Smeaton Grange, Currans Hill, Kirkham) is represented by Peter Johnson, David Funnell and Cindy Cagney. Central Ward (Mount Annan, Narellan, Narellan Vale) is represented by Fred Anderson, Rob Elliott and Debby Dewbery. South Ward (Ellis Lane, Grasmere, Camden, Elderslie, Spring Farm, Bickley Vale, Cawdor, Camden South) is represented by Chris Patterson, Eva Campbell and Fred Whiteman. Chris Patterson was elected mayor in 2006. Cindy Cagney was elected deputy mayor in 2007.

Camden is contained within the federal electorate

Australian House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....

of Macarthur

Division of Macarthur

The Division of Macarthur is an Australia Federal electoral division covering outer south-west Sydney. Its present boundaries cover the southern suburbs of Campbelltown, all of the local government area of Camden and small parts of Wollondilly. It covers 537 km² and is named after John...

and the state electorate

New South Wales Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...

of Camden

Electoral district of Camden

Camden is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales in Sydney's south-west. It is currently represented by Chris Patterson of the Liberal Party of Australia.-History:...

. The state seat of Camden covers the Camden Council area and some fringe areas of Campbelltown. It is currently held by Labor's Geoff Corrigan, the former Mayor of Camden and was won from the Liberal Party at the 2003 State election. The federal seat of Macarthur has traditionally been a bellwether

Bellwether

A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings.The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram leading his flock of sheep.The movements of...

seat, but even with a change in government at the 2007 election, the sitting Liberal MP, former ultra-marathon runner Pat Farmer, narrowly survived an 11% swing against him.

Planning issues

On 27 May 2008 Camden Council rejected plans from the Quranic Society to build a 1,200-student Islamic school in the town on planning

Urban planning

Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....

grounds. The issue received national and international media coverage. The proposal was opposed from within the local community, many expressing fear about the presence of Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

s in an area where relatively few Muslims live. There were angry racially-based comments by a number of residents in Camden. The Christian Democratic Party

Christian Democratic Party (Australia)

The Christian Democratic Party is a right-wing political party in Australia. Its leader is Fred Nile, a Congregational Church minister and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council.-Formation:...

(CDP) opposed the proposal. Speaking at a public meeting in December 2007, CDP leader Fred Nile

Fred Nile

Frederick John "Fred" Nile is an Australian politician and clergyman. Nile has been a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 1981, except for a period in 2004 when he resigned to contest the Australian Senate at the 2004 federal election...

(present alongside Robert Balzola) said he opposed the school "because Islam opposed Christianity". A spokesman for the Quranic Society said it was "absurd" to claim that Muslims are anti-Christian.

In making its decision several council members, including Mayor Chris Patterson, said the school was inappropriate for the semi-rural area of Camden and likely to cause parking, traffic and other problems. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...

indicated before the council decision that he wouldn't support the school on planning grounds. The Quranic Society said it will appeal the Council's decision in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales

Land and Environment Court of New South Wales

The Land and Environment Court of New South Wales is a Court established by legislation giving it exclusive jurisdiction to determine environmental, development, building and planning disputes...

.

In September 2008, a proposal to build a private Catholic school received media attention for not provoking the same sort of outcry as the previous proposal. News authority failed to note this school had already been located in Camden (Cobbity) for several years and was a special needs school. Some residents who were not supportive of the Islamic school now welcomed the Catholic school proposal. The Catholic school proposal is set in a different location, where it has been argued that such a development would be suitable.

On Tuesday the 2nd of June 2009, The Land and Environment Court passed down the decision to reject the appeal by the Quranic Society, with the court stating that the "development application was not suitable for the rural nature of the land."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.