GREENS - Heffron - Ben Spies-Butcher RW Forum Speech
Hello,
Thanks REDWatch. Acknowledgement.
First a brief introduction. Many of you
know me, but some of you don’t. I have been a local resident, living under the
Redfern Waterloo Authority, since it began. I helped to establish REDWatch, and
was Secretary before I stood down to contest the election. I am trained as an
economist and currently work on public policy issue at Sydney
and Macquarie Universities.
I also have a longer history in the
area. My first home was in Douglas
Street, around the corner from here, and both my
parents were actively involved in the local area, including helping to
establish Douglas Street People’s Park.
Sadly, many of the battles my parents
fought continue on today. The battles to preserve affordable housing, to
increase public open space, to properly acknowledge the place of Indigenous
Australians in our community and to properly fund public services. Those
battles continue, in part at least, because of the Redfern Waterloo Authority.
I know that the RWA is not the only issue
here – but it is a very significant one – so I’d like to spend some time
looking at its track record and discussing an alternative approach.
The RWA is only the latest in a series
of Government attempts to ‘manage’ our community. It was preceded by the
Redfern Waterloo Partnership Project, which developed what was known as the RED
scheme. That plan took years to put together – I remember going to a number of
different consultation processes, some run by the government, others by outside
consultants. I, along with many of you and many other members of the public
spent hours pouring over the plans, giving feedback and attempting to engage in
the process.
Then in 2004 the Government announced
the RWA. The RWPP was first wound back, then wound up. The RED scheme was
ditched and the RWA started from scratch. There were more consultants and more
plans. Meanwhile, the Council was quietly doing things – like the Redfern
Neighbourhood Centre. They were investing in the area. In response, the
Government abolished the Council and combined it with the City of Sydney. Labor lost the
council elections, and again the Council, with support from all sides of
politics, continued to work on the ground with the community.
Next, the Labor Government used its
powers to overrule the Council and centralise virtually all power over
infrastructure and redevelopment into the Minister – Frank Sartor.
The Labor Government promised proper
consultation processes, with regular public meetings at least every 3 months.
Its been two years, there still hasn’t been one proper public meeting – and
only one meeting with public housing tenants.
And what are the RWA’s plans for the
area?
Well in 2004 the Sydney Morning Herald
revealed leaked Cabinet plans for a dramatic redevelopment. I’ll read a few
exerpts from the Herald’s coverage of that Cabinet document.
“Under the 10-year plan, the Government will tear down the residential towers in Waterloo and privatise $540 million worth of public assets… In a major piece of social engineering, 20,000 new private renters and owners will be brought in to balance out the 7000 public housing tenants in the area, many of whom are poor, old and disabled.”
-
Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 2004
“The NSW Government is the largest landholder in the ... area. The estimated market value of developments in the area is approximately $5 billion," the papers say.
-
confidential Cabinet document quoted in the Sydney Morning
Herald, 29 November 2004
Residents who now have only half the open space of other inner-city suburbs will have only a quarter of the space once the population is doubled, the papers reveal.
-
Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November 2004
That’s how it began. Since then the RWA has announced the sale of tens of millions of dollars in public land, including the Eveleigh rail yards – north and south; Redfern Public School and Rachel Forster Hospital. They initially also had plans to build 18-story buildings on Marian Park and to privatise the old police station and Court house – plans they backed down from after fierce community campaigns.
The RWA has an odd funding structure –
its operating budget, and all the money it hopes to spend, come from the sale
and rent of land it controls. What is more, the Government has refused to fund
normal infrastructure upgrades itself, and instead is using the RWA to fund
those works through the sale of public land. When Town Hall station receives an
upgrade the state government will pay for it – but when Redfern station is
upgraded it will be funded by the sale of land in Eveliegh.
Likewise, the supposedly ‘new’
community health facility on Redfern
Street will actually replace an existing facility
in Rachel Forster Hospital,
and will be funded by the sale of the whole Rachel Forster site.
And in all these plans there is no plan
for cycleway, no comprehensive transport plan, no plan for increasing open
space to cope with increased population, no plan for public services, like
schools and trains. Darlington and
Erskineville public schools are at capacity already – where are the services to
cater for the tens of thousands of new residents?
Even the affordable housing plan is
dismal. The entire funding for Indigenous affordable housing, while welcome,
comes from the RWA redirecting developer levies from the Carlton United Brewery
site into Redfern-Waterloo. The actual affordable housing being offered by the
RWA is only 1.25% - less than half what would have been required by the Council
– only a fifth of what was achieved in Ultimo-Pyrmont.
We have run a strong campaign on increasing
public and affordable housing. Greens in parliament have introduced a private
members bill to increase affordable housing contributions to 10% - not 1.25%.
We have also run a campaign to ensure public housing residents know what is
planned for their homes.
The RWA plans a second round of
redevelopment focused on public housing in the area.
Despite more than two years as the RWA,
and five or more years of government intervention in Redfern-Waterloo – the
Government claims they still have not worked out the details. We have to wait
until after the election. The Greens do not believe it is good enough for the
Government to announce they will develop someone’s home, still not have plans
two years later and then say, trust us we’ll tell you after the election.
This is particularly the case because
this Government has form. I have worked with public housing tenants in Minto
and Dubbo. I know that they were told it would all be OK. Minto residents were
promised they could return – but they couldn’t. Dubbo residents were involved
in a two year consultation process only to be told their homes would be
demolished without any prior warning – three months later the area had been
razed.
It is important that public housing
tenants know where they stand. Cabinet documents said their homes would be
demolished, land privatised and the population massively increased. The RWA,
who already plan massive land privatisation, still says there is a second round
of planning that will deal with public housing. But Kristina Keneally, the RWA
and the Government refuse to say what those plans are.
The Greens are committed to public
housing. We want to increase public housing across the state to rescue public
housing from becoming welfare housing, and to return it to its rightful
position as housing for low income workers. That is the real solution to the
concentration of needs we are currently experiencing – not privatising the land
next to public housing tenants.
It is not just with public housing
tenants either. The RWA has similar plans to drive Aboriginal people off their
own land at the Block. Prior to the RWA coming along the Aboriginal Housing
Company developed plans for an Indigenous community on the Block. Their plans
were entirely consistent with the zoning laws as they stood then – in fact they
were below the density allowed.
Then the RWA decided to rezone land. In
all of the Government owned land, the land it was about to sell off, it
increased the amount of residential housing that could be built. But in one spot,
on the Block, it lowered it. That’s right, the government actually decreased
how much housing the AHC could build.
In response Kristina said:
“But ultimately it’s a racist argument to claim that Aboriginal people are so victimised that the rules don’t apply to them.”
- Kristina Keneally, Submission to
Draft BEP Stage 1.
Remember – the AHC was playing by the
existing rules – their argument was that the Government shouldn’t change the
rules. In truth this had nothing to do with playing by the rules. Those same
leaked government documents also showed that the government had discovered that
were they to remove the Aboriginal community, the value of the land they were
about to sell would sky-rocket. Not surprisingly, The Property Council of
Australia, came out and publicly backed the RWA.
Frank Sartor also has a unique style of
working with the community. When Michael Mundine from the Aboriginal Housing
Company would not engage with the Government’s attempts to kick the Aboriginal
community off the Block, Sartor sent an open letter address to Mick Mundine to
every home in Redfern, Eveleigh, Darlinton and Waterloo. He then went on Koori Radio to
famously tell Mick to get his ‘black arse’ down to his office.
Alongside the plans for development
there has been a facade of a broader
community project. There is a human services plan – but it concludes
that there should be no more money. There is an employment and enterprise plan
– which acts largely as a justification for the construction of a series of
18-storey office towers as a form of job creation. It is odd indeed to think
that the main cause of unemployment in this area – a good 10 minute walk from
the CBD – is lack of access to office jobs.
The Greens are committed to
significantly increasing human services funding, to conducting a proper
evaluation of future needs and halting all land privatisation – including the
sale of Rachel Forster - so we can properly plan for the open space and the new
schools, aged care and other services we will need to cater to our growing
population.
We cannot afford to simply reelect a
member of the very Government that has imposed the RWA upon us. We cannot
afford to elect a representative from a Party that accepts hundred of thousands
of dollars every year from developers. We need a representative that can stand
up to the machine men of the Labor Party, that will hold them to account.
The broader policy picture is similar.
Where both Labor and Liberal are committed to expanding road travel, the Greens
will redirect funding from new motorways into upgraded public transport
infrastructure. We will campaign to stop the expansion of Port Botany, the F6
and the Marrickville Truck Tunnel. We have a vision of light rail, extensive,
safe cycle ways and trains and buses that are both accessible and affordable.
We will buy back Green Square
and Mascot stations and lower the fares so that new residents are not forced
into the daily traffic jams around our suburbs.
Where both Labor and Liberal accept
hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from developers, we have
campaigned to ban developer donations to political parties, and we do not
accept them.
Where Labor and Liberal engage in a law
and order auction that costs millions of dollars, with minimal effect on crime
or community safety, we will invest in the drug and alcohol treatment services,
public school and TAFE and education and rehabilitation services that actually
prevent crime and make our community safer. It costs the same amount to lock
some one up as it does to employ a teacher – there are better, cheaper ways to
improve community safety.
We will also oppose the desalination
plant, which will make it much harder to move to renewable energy, by proposing
water efficiency and recycling measures. We will move for mandatory renewable
energy targets and we will begin the phasing out of coal by opposing new coal
mines, new coal fired power stations and supporting a carbon tax to fund the
transition to jobs in renewable energy. We will oppose Anvil Hill and the 11
other coal projects Labor and Liberal are supporting. Climate Change is perhaps
the most urgent public policy issue we face – and the Greens are the only party
in this electorate that take the challenge seriously.
I am a proud member of this community
and the things it stands for. This was the site of the win for the urban
Aboriginal land rights movement. It is where the Green Bans saw residents and
workers stand together in the face of developer greed. This was where the train
age started in Sydney.
Yes, we have our problems. But we are a unique, diverse and extraordinary
community. I will fight to make our community a more vibrant, safer more
sustainable place – but I will also fight to preserve our history and our
diversity.
The Greens offer a genuine alternative to Sartor, the RWA and the Labor Government. We will hold this Government and the RWA to account. We will defend public housing and workers rights. We do not accept donations from developers or corporations. We will stand up to developers and we will work for a more sustainable approach to planning, transport and our environment.