[North Eveleigh] REDWatch Meeting / Election Outcome / Council Resilience Consultation

Tue Apr 4 13:43:54 AEST 2023

Dear REDWatch members, supporters and agencies,

REDWatch Community Listening Meeting 6 April 6pm

Election Outcome

Council – have your say on developing a resilience strategy
Please note – this email contains hyperlinks. This means that if you see a blue underlined word or phrase that you can click on it and go directly to a document or to get more information.
REDWatch Community Listening Meeting 6 April 6pm
With the election dust still settling, the next scheduled REDWatch meeting on Thursday 6th April, will be a combination listening exercise and an opportunity to get clarification about any of the issues REDWatch is already working on. We can also discuss what we know about the likely election implications.
We want to know the issues of concern to you that you think REDWatch could usefully work on to help give community concerns a greater voice. We also want to know what issues you would like us to look at in future REDWatch meetings.
REDWatch is not only involved around the Waterloo, Redfern and Eveleigh developments but is also involved in the Waterloo Human Services Collaborative with state government agencies, Sydney Council and NGOs. So, we are keen to hear whether human services have improved, what has not improved and what issues need to be raised with government departments.
REDWatch is a member of Groundswell with local and state NGOs. Groundswell representatives’ meets with the DCJ District, Sydney Local Health District and Land and Housing Corporation as well as the Waterloo Human Service Collaborative, so there are lots of opportunities to raise persistent issues and stories about community issues. To raise those issues we need to hear from you.
The REDWatch meeting is an open community meeting held at the Factory Community Centre at 6pm on Thursday 6th April 2023. While you can join this meeting on Zoom via https://tinyurl.com/RedwatchZoomMeeting , it is better suited to in person attendance at the meeting at the Factory. For more information email mail at redwatch.org.au, ring on 8004 1490, follow REDWatch on Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/> or visit www.redwatch.org.au<http://www.redwatch.org.au> .
Election Outcome
While there will be a new Labor Government in NSW, it will have to negotiate with the cross benches to get legislation through the NSW Parliament. In the April South Sydney Herald you will find an article Labor returns in minority government<https://southsydneyherald.com.au/labor-returns-in-minority-government/> by Ben Spies-Butcher doing an inner city analysis of the election outcome.
The online version of today’s Sydney Morning Herald has a list of the new ministers – see Female firsts in new Labor cabinet, where half the ministers will be women<https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/female-firsts-in-new-labor-cabinet-where-half-the-ministers-will-be-women-20230403-p5cxrk.html>. The key ministers likely to be of immediate interest to REDWatch members and supporters who can’t get past the paywall until the list is public are likely to be:

  *   Ron Hoenig - MINISTER FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL LEADER OF THE GOVERNMENT IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
  *   Rose Jackson - MINISTER FOR WATER MINISTER FOR HOUSING MINISTER FOR HOMELESSNESS MINISTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH MINISTER FOR YOUTH MINISTER FOR THE NORTH COAST
  *   Kate Washington - MINISTER FOR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES MINISTER FOR DISABILITY INCLUSION
  *   Ryan Park - MINISTER FOR HEALTH MINISTER FOR REGIONAL HEALTH MINISTER FOR THE ILLAWARRA AND THE SOUTH COAST
  *   Jo Haylen - MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT
  *   Paul Scully - MINISTER FOR PLANNING AND PUBLIC SPACES
The Ministers’ roles give us some idea of where a new government might be headed, but until we see gazetted the Acts and instruments that each Minister is responsible for, we do not know what responsibilities each minister will start with and what needs to change with later machinery of government changes to deliver the promised outcomes.
Administrative changes, such as the creation of a Homes NSW Agency<https://www.chrisminns.com.au/homesnsw>, which will combine LAHC, DCJ Housing and The Aboriginal Housing Office, will take time to implement even though these agencies have been together and separated twice before under the Coalition Government. It will take even longer to address the cultural differences between LAHC and DCJ Housing to get an integrated approach to tenant support.
Many things said by candidates to get elected do not always materialise. Were they commitments of the incoming government or of candidates and supporters in a local context? It is also timely to remember the “core and non-core promises” and “first and second order priorities” debates of the past.
Immediately after the election the new Labor Government has made a first order priority to lift the wages of teaches and nurses, that with whatever black budget holes and signed contacts they find, will determine what money will be available for implementing other promises and the timing for them.
We are still not clear what this means for Waterloo, as the major Labor election announcements did not mention Waterloo specifically. Links to the Labor promises are on the REDWatch post Labor Party approach to public, social and affordable housing<http://www.redwatch.org.au/redw/elections/230325redw/230325alp>.
We know that the incoming Government is committed to “Any properties built on surplus government land will be subject to Labor’s mandatory requirement of 30% of dwellings to be used for social, affordable and universal housing”. That figure is already met in planning for Waterloo and, depending on interpretation, also at North Eveleigh.
Labor has said that “Rather than turning public land around stations into hotels, we will increase the supply of affordable housing for renters, in locations well serviced by public transport” so that may mean more affordable housing at such developments, but there was no indication yet of how this promise is to be delivered and paid for.
During the election the ALP campaign released a graphic that said “Labor will end the sale of public housing”. Linda Scott in using that graphic said “If you live in public housing, Labor will protect your home. Your home will not be sold, and you will not be relocated.” Attempts by REDWatch and Counterpoint to get a confirmation from Rose Jackson’s office of this broad statement, did not get a reply in the lead up to the election.
The ALP 2022 State Conference Resolution on Public Housing<http://www.redwatch.org.au/issues/public-housing/221016alp> is for Labor to “Implement legislation which places a moratorium on the privatisation of public housing including the sale, outsourcing, or leasing of any public housing assets or services”. The policy also covers the possibility of rehousing during redevelopment. At the REDWatch meeting Rose Jackson indicated there were estates that would probably need to be redeveloped and that the ALP would honour contracts that had been entered into.
It is probably too soon to declare, as some have, that the battle for Waterloo is over and the tenants have won. What is likely is that there will be a hiatus while the new Minister and Government confirm what contracts have been entered into and while the Departmental deck chairs are rearranged. There is also the issue of money, specifically what money Treasury can make available to run, build and repair public housing and to deliver the increase in affordable housing promised and run the social housing system differently from the Coalition Government. Somewhere in all that a decision will be made about the current tender process, planning controls and the future of the Waterloo public housing estate.
There are commitments on social and affordable housing that have been made by the NSW ALP, but also undertakings made by local MPs like Ron Hoenig and prominent ALP members and campaigners. It is important to understand that unless communities hold government and politicians to their undertakings then the undertakings are likely to slip off the agenda and the communities with the most vocal / powerful voices in support are likely to get priority and have their priorities delivered ahead of others.
Pressure from the community and ALP members needs to be applied from the start to ensure the new Government delivers on the promises made.
Council – have your say on developing a resilience strategy
The City of Sydney has an exhibition on developing a resilience strategy<https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision-setting/your-say-developing-resilience-strategy> for the local government area until 21 April. The consultation site says “Resilience is our ability to prepare for, withstand and adapt following major disruptions. Disruptions can be short-term shocks such as storms, heatwaves or electricity outages. They can be ongoing stresses such as lack of green space, rising cost of living or traffic congestion.”
This is an important opportunity for the community to have input on a range of issues that both already impact the community or which might in the future. At the centre of a resilient community are the local connections and support networks as well as individual household preparedness.
Resilience tends to be talked about by government in terms of disasters. You can see a recent literature review undertaken by Sydney University with Inner Sydney Voice and the NSW Government at Community Disaster Resilience: State of Research 2017-2021<https://innersydneyvoice.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Literature-review-FA2.pdf>. Importantly resilience strategies also need to have an equity lens applied to them to ensure those likely to be impacted most and least able to access support are a focus. A project led by Inner Sydney Voice with a number of other NGO, emergency bodies and Council produced this Emergency Preparedness Handbook for people living in social housing<https://innersydneyvoice.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Emergency-Preparedness-Handbook-final-published-version.pdf> . Many of its suggestions apply more broadly.
But resilience is not just about personal responsibilities and the emergency. It is about the strength and connectedness of communities and Councils have a role to play in this, which is why this exhibition is important.
Active community centres have proved to be invaluable in areas hit by disasters. While the big state-wide agencies like the Salvos, Barnardos etc. are paid by Government to come in to provide immediate assistance, they often do not know the local area or community and then they vacate long before the community recovers leaving the local community to its own devices. Outside urban areas most community centres are actually run by community organisations rather than councils, so the social capital and resilience relied upon in a disaster comes from their day to day interaction with the community.
It is difficult to see how the physical buildings that Councils own and let out, play much more of a role than emergency accommodation as they are not dealing day to day with the wider community. The big push from the NGO sector across the state is to try to get core funding for community centres from state government to act as community resilience infrastructure rather than rely on the current project by project small grants process and funding from Communities and Justice for delivering targeted early intervention. In the city where Council owns much of the community infrastructure, council activities need to be much more focused on the building of community and community capital so there is community resilience to absorb shocks and support each other in response.
The bit of resilience that has had less of a focus has been the what the Council website refers to as “ongoing stresses such as lack of green space, rising cost of living or traffic congestion” much of which, in the inner city, is related to the level of growth and the lack of facilities to support that growth. So it is certainly also an area for residents in areas being effected by such growth should be commenting upon.
This is not just an infrastructure issue it is also very much linked to how to build community generally, especially in areas impacted by significant redevelopment between new residents and the prior community and how communities cope with change. At the moment “community development” and “community building” have been out of vogue, but they are the building blocks of resilient communities and the villages that we say make up the City of Sydney Council.
REDWatch has had a couple of visits and presentations by Jim Deirs who details in his book Neighbor Power<http://www.neighborpower.org/book.html>  how active communities and community participation were built in Seattle around community development. Council picked up the matching grants program from Jim’s work, but much of the community development side was not picked up.
The Council’s development of a resilience strategy needs to relook at community strengthening and community development to build community connectedness and community capital. To the extent we do this the inner city will have more resilient communities to deal with the changes currently underway and the shocks to come.
We urge you to put your thoughts into this consultation.
Regards,

Geoff
Geoffrey Turnbull
REDWatch Co-Spokesperson
Ph Wk: (02) 8004 1490  Mob: 0418 457 392
email: spokesperson at redwatch.org.au
web: www.redwatch.org.au<http://www.redwatch.org.au/>
FB: www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/<http://www.facebook.com/RedfernEveleighDarlingtonWaterlooWatch/>

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