Macquarie () is a residential suburb in the

Belconnen The District of Belconnen () is one of the original eighteen districts of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), used in land administration. The district is subdivided into 27 divisions (suburbs), sections and blocks. The district of Belconn ...

district of Canberra, located within the

Australian Capital Territory The Australian Capital Territory (commonly abbreviated as ACT), known as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) until 1938, is a landlocked federal territory of Australia containing the national capital Canberra and some surrounding townships. I ...

, Australia. Macquarie was gazetted as a division on 22 June 1967 in recognition of Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, a former Governor of New South Wales. Streets in Macquarie are named after contemporaries of Governor Macquarie. Macquarie is located in the inner north Canberra district of Belconnen. It is bordered to the north by Belconnen Way, Bindubi Street to the east, Redfern Street to the south and Coulter Drive to the west.

Demographics

At the , Macquarie had a population of 2,700 people. The census shows that Macquarie residents have an average age of 36 compared to a Canberra average of 35. The population of Macquarie is predominantly Australian-born at 65.7% with the second most common birthplace being China (excluding SARs and Taiwan) at 4.0% of the population. Accommodation is predominantly separate houses (70.7%) with a gradual increase in flats, units and apartments (17.9%, slightly under the ACT and Australian averages) since previous census periods. There are a group of streets with public housing adjacent to the

Jamison Centre Jamison Centre () is a large shopping centre located in Belconnen's eastern suburb of Macquarie, Australian Capital Territory. Comprising two indoor/outdoor complexes and a range of standalone stores and facilities, the centre is anchored by Co ...

Suburb amenities

There is a small shopping centre on Lachlan Street in Macquarie that has a Medical Centre, Chemist, Coffee Shop and ''Kinh Doh'' Vietnamese restaurant. The

is the major shopping centre in Macquarie and has a popular outdoor Rotary community market every Sunday morning. Adjacent to the Jamison Centre is Big Splash, one of Canberra's few privately owned but public swimming pools and home to Canberra's only outdoor water slide. On the corner of Bindubi Street and Belconnen Way is the Canberra High School originally established in 1938 at

Telopea Park School , image = Telopea Park School in Barton (1).jpg , image_size = 250 , caption = , motto = la, Spectans orientia solis lumina , motto_translation = Looking towards the rising sun , established = , type = Government ...

and then Acton from 1939 until moving to the current site when officially opened on 21 August 1972; it has large playing fields between it and the swimming pool.
Macquarie Primary School
on Bennelong Crescent is a government run school established in 1968 and was the first school in Belconnen.

Transport

ACTION Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

bus route 32 connects Macquarie with

Belconnen Town Centre Belconnen Town Centre is located in the suburb of Belconnen on the south-western shore of Lake Ginninderra in Canberra, Australia. It is the town centre for the Belconnen district. Belconnen Town Centre contains several Federal and Territory ...

and Civic.

Political representation

For the purposes of Australian federal elections for the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

, Macquarie is in the

Division of Canberra The Division of Canberra is an Australian electoral division in the Australian Capital Territory. It is named for the city of Canberra, Australia's national capital, and includes all of central Canberra, Kowen, Majura, as well as part of West ...

. For the purposes of Australian Capital Territory elections for the ACT Legislative Assembly, Macquarie is in the

Ginninderra electorate The Ginninderra electorate is one of the five electorates for the unicameral 25-member Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly. It elects five members. History It was created in 1995, when the three-electorate, Hare-Clark electoral s ...

Geology

Greywacke Greywacke or graywacke (German ''grauwacke'', signifying a grey, earthy rock) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lit ...

from the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. T ...

Pittman Formation forms a band down the east of Macquarie. This has been uplifted on the east side of the Deakin Fault. The fault heads in the north east direction in this suburb, whereas the Deakin fault normally heads in the north west direction. A porphyry of Green-grey Dacitic intrusive containing large white

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) felds ...

crystals is found under the Jamison Centre. Green grey

rhyodacite Rhyodacite is a volcanic rock intermediate in composition between dacite and rhyolite. It is the extrusive equivalent of those plutonic rocks that are intermediate in composition between monzogranite and granodiorite. Rhyodacites form from rap ...

of the Walker Volcanics underlie the center and west of Macquarie.Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.

References

*Canberra Suburbs, radio show, 666 ABC (23 December 2002)

External links

666 Canberra website
Retrieved 2010-05-18. {{Authority control Suburbs of Canberra