07 October 2005

RWA Website Launched & RWA Update with focus on Built Environment

The RWA’s new website has been launched this morning (it was up a bit yesterday as well) at the web address used earlier by the RWPP http://www.redfernwaterloo.nsw.gov.au .

The site is much as we caught it back in August 5 and put it on the REDWatch website. Now it has the names of the community representatives on the three Ministerial Advisory Committees listed and other details updated.

Have a look at the list of Community Representatives at http://www.redfernwaterloo.nsw.gov.au/community_consultation/index.html and see who has been chosen by the Minister to represent you. One of the changes you might note is the dropping of the RWPP prohibition that if you worked for the government you could not be a community representative. It also is apparent that community representatives do not need to live in the REDW area.

The RWA is also releasing a new Redfern –Waterloo UPDATE September 2005 focusing on the Built Environment which is also on the RWA site at http://www.redfernwaterloo.nsw.gov.au/other/newsletters/august05_newsletter.pdf . The PDF file is a reasonable size about 174KB but we have also added a text version on the REDWatch website if you need it at http://www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/statements/2005/051005rwa . The new RWA Update is similar to the newsletter released earlier in the week by the ATP (the ATP version is 1.2MB) http://www.atp.com.au/uploads/documents/TP522_SE_nwsltter2_26%2009%2005.pdf although the ATP version also tells you that there is a display at Bay 8 at the ATP on the new road project and the built form and a bit more information about what is happening at the ATP.

We were interested to read in the ATP version that the revisions to the master Plan approved by the Minister in June “were the result of an extensive community consultation program undertaken by the ATP to test the vision for the ATP’s future development. Two workshops were held one for community members, the other for ATP tenants.” As people who keep their ear to the ground about such consultations we were not aware of this consultation. One workshop for community members does not sound like “extensive community consultation to us”. While the new Master plan does not yet appear on the ATP website the earlier Master Plan can be found at http://www.atp.com.au/dyncontent.cfm?MenuID=110 .

We are pleased to see in the latest RWA Redfern Waterloo Update that the RWA has come out and announced that it needs to start planning now for how it will reform and revitalise public housing in stage 2 of the Redfern Waterloo Plan. The Minister’s denials that anything was going to happen at his meeting with public tenants ran the risk that the planning necessary to deliver the undertakings made by the government might not happen. Now at least we have the RWA saying something will happen and we need to start planning now to ensure we meet the undertakings given by the Government.

The launch of the website and the information in the new update are welcomed and should ensure greater information is in the public domain.

It has to be remembered that this is only one part of a communications and engagement strategy. It is disappointing that again there has been no announcement of the promised Public Forums for the community for residents to meet with the Minister. The last one was run by the RWPP in December 2003 and we have been promised four a year ever since!

The RWA Update does provide advance notice of “Public Launches” for the Human Services Plan and the Redfern-Waterloo Plan (Stage One) but these are hardly likely to be opportunities for the community to provide the Minister “with advice on the broad strategic direction of Redfern-Waterloo” which is what we were told in April would be the role of the Community Forums. There is an ongoing need for the RWA to put out a more comprehensive community engagement policy than the one on the RWA website under Community Consultation ands for the community to have a chance to provide the Minister with feedback on the community engagement policy. There is also a need for them to do what they say they will do!

We are sure that everyone will have a lot of reading to do today and over the weekend with the new website and newsletter so we will not include all the other material we have in the next Update which we will try and get out in the next couple of days.