On Saturday 12th April, activists, community figures, and residents gathered to oppose the selling off of public housing in Waterloo and elsewhere. The event was chaired by Karyn Brown, a Waterloo public housing tenant and member of Action for Public Housing (A4PH), and included various speakers from political and community groups.
The protest took place after the first eviction notices were served to Waterloo public housing residents in late February. This is part of the Minns government’s plan to demolish the public housing estate. The plan is split into three sections: Waterloo South, North and Central. The Waterloo South section is underway, which will demolish 750 public housing properties and replace them with 3,000 homes, with only 30 per cent promised as public housing stock.
Residents have opposed the demolition of the housing estate for over ten years. Current plans face ongoing protest, from residents, as well as from architects and academics.
Held in the grassy area outside the Redfern Community Centre, the rally opened with Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor, a Gadigal/Bidjigal/Yuin Elder and Traditional Descendant from Sydney (Warrane), welcoming attendants to Country. Dixon emphasised vigilance: “If we think we are going to be taken care of because we exist… we are mistaken”. Governments will move residents around “like cattle” for their agendas, Dixon argued. Dixon went on to link current campaigns to Indigenous resistance since invasion, saying that Gadigal country was “the place of first resistance”.
Dixon was followed by Jenny Leong, Greens Member for Newtown in NSW Parliament, who opened with an expression of solidarity and support with the struggle for public housing. Leong focused on the profit-driven interests of housing development companies. She pointed behind the rally to the Scape development which looms over the Redfern community centre to illustrate “what fucks up” when housing is used towards profits instead of rights. Leong finished her address with a reinforcement of her message of solidarity, and a furthering of her opposition to “greedy fucking landlords with their seventh home”.
Andrew Collis, former managing editor of South Sydney Herald and former Reverend for South Sydney Uniting Church, spoke next. Collis argued the NSW government’s decisions were fundamentally inhumane and disregarded human dignity. Like other speakers, Collis emphasised vigilance: he said that we need to “raise our voices and fight”; “We can’t sit back and wait for the market to fix this.” While he must have been more accustomed to the pulpit than the megaphone, Collis’ speech was rousing.
Rachel Evans, Socialist Alliance candidate for Heffron who aided in the Glebe property protests, spoke after Collis. Evans emphasised Dixon’s sentiment that there was “no homelessness in Indigenous communities before colonialism”. Evans further stated that a fight against the destruction of existing homes and continuing evictions is a form of Land Back. They also gave several examples of actions taken under both Liberal and Labor governments, such as demolitions of properties in Lismore and the eviction of forty-five individuals in Mascot properties, which demonstrated that they are “waging a war against the impoverished”. She concluded that these actions targeted marginalised communities and underscored the need for further resistance.
Annabel Pettit (SAlt) stepped in at the last minute as representative from the USyd SRC. Pettit is the SRC Welfare Officer and a member of Students for Palestine. She started off with an anecdote, reassuring the audience that the Minister for Housing, Rose Jackson, is not well-liked as a USyd alum. Pettit’s speech highlighted the links between the fight for public housing in NSW and the Victorian government’s proposals to ‘refurbish’ 44 housing towers, with one activist suing for wrongful eviction, losing, and having to cover their own legal costs.
Chels Hood Withey, a housing advocate in the Northern Rivers and a member of the House You Grassroots campaign, related her personal experiences of the activities of the government in the wake of the recent Lismore floods, where they bought up 800 damaged properties and then left them damaged without repair renovations. Withey elaborated that there was simply no public housing in the Northern Rivers, and she added that the government sues squatters who attempt to use abandoned or structurally sound houses bought by the government in the post-2022 flood buyback program. Withey cited her experience being taken to the Supreme Court over such squatting.
Wes, another Northern Rivers activist, spoke next. Wes emphasised the misplaced government money,that squatting has been a “regeneration”, and much of the community is in support. They finished with a pithy chant: “no evictions, this is class war; Lismore, love more, squat more.”
Denis Doherty, former chair of the Glebe Youth Centre and a coordinator of Hands Off Glebe, was the final speaker. He spoke emotively and passionately, expressing that the state of social housing today is just as bad or worse as when he aided Mum Shirl, a historic resident of areas targeted by property developments, by driving her to her well-known NSW prison visits. He stated that government members treat “social housing” as a dirty phrase, and that the government wraps up schemes which seek to destroy communities in “beautiful-sounding names” that hinder aid or positive change. Doherty also threw light on the Prime Minister’s childhood within social housing, saying that he now calls for “houses on cliffs worth $45 million”. This was met with cries of “shame” from the audience. Doherty concluded by emphasising the brutality of evictions and demolition, accentuating the need for a system that “treats people as people”.
The protest proceeded along the streets to Waterloo, with protestors’ cries echoing throughout Redfern’s streets.
To learn more about the Action for Public Housing, and contribute to fundraising, head to their social media @action4publichousing.
