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You are here: Home / Our Community / Elections / State Election – March 24th 2007 / The State seat of Heffron / GREENS – Ben Spies-Butcher / GREENS - Heffron - Ben Spies-Butcher RW Forum Speech

GREENS - Heffron - Ben Spies-Butcher RW Forum Speech

This is the text of the speech prepared by Ben Spies-Butcher for the REDWatch Heffron Candidate's Forum on 14th March 2007. Please note that the written speech may not fully correspond with what was finally said in the candidate's address.

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.