Conclusion

The community’s experience to date gives no confidence that the government is serious about working co-operatively with the community for the ten years duration of the RWA. Almost nine months after the RWA was established there has not yet been one of the promised Community Forums, the RWA web site is not functioning and the meetings that have been called for human services and public tenants were announced with such short notice that many people could not attend.

These three case studies illustrate the Redfern-Waterloo community’s early experience of the RWA and its Minister who, under the RWA legislation, has the final say in what will and what will not happen in our area.

These case studies also show that the consultation, partnership and community engagement which were called for by the Legislative Council’s Redfern-Waterloo Inquiry have not been put into practice by the NSW Government.

These case studies underline why the community wanted their right to have input into the decisions made about them by the RWA protected in the legislation rather than left to the discretion of an all powerful Minister for Redfern-Waterloo.

While the community was not successful in gaining legislative rights both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Redfern, Eveleigh, Darlington and Waterloo continue to agitate for the NSW government to ‘achieve genuine partnership between State and Commonwealth agencies, the City of Sydney Council, the non government sector and the local community in order to address the issues facing Redfern and Waterloo’ as recommended by the Redfern-Waterloo Inquiry.[1]