DEFEND PUBLIC HOUSING
By Hannah
Middleton and Denis Doherty
On March
19 the NSW Liberal G announced the sell off of 293 public housing properties at
Millers Point and The Rocks and the eviction of their tenants.
The heritage value of Millers Point is not just in its buildings, but in
its historic use as public housing, and in the long family and community ties
of many of the people living there. The strong community spirit, cohesion and
long history linked to the working harbour of the Millers Point community are
major reasons why the area was included on the State Heritage register.
MAJOR
FIGHT BACK
Millers
Point public housing tenants have launched a campaign against the NSW Government's
plans for forced evictions. Three separate community organisations have
combined to form the Millers Point Community Defence Group.
A community meeting to plan the fightback, organised by the Millers Point
Defence Committee with the support of the Maritime Union of Australia and the
City of Sydney, drew a crowd of 500 on 22 March.
A
lifetime resident of the area, Barney Gardner, said he and his neighbours would
fight to stay, defying efforts to evict them.
"It
will be a fight because we will have many, many supporters; we don't want
violence, but we are prepared to go to jail," he declared.
“They will not take away your homes,” Paul McAleer, Maritime Union Sydney
Secretary, told the public meeting.
“The MUA will bring the shock troops; we will bring other unions along with
us to defend your homes. We will be arrested if we have to.”
Jack
Mundey told The Sun-Herald that the fight to save The Rocks and Millers
Point and Dawes Point is continuing and he called for support for the residents.'
Sydney
Lord Mayor Clover Moore has pointed out that the Millers Point community
survived the plague, the Depression and war.
“It is
shameful that it is government that will destroy this proud and strong
neighbourhood,” she stated.
Many
residents have yellow ribbons tied to their front doors to highlight their fear
of eviction.
HOUSING
CRISIS
Housing affordability
has fallen to its lowest level ever, yet over the past decade more than $3
billion was taken out of public housing.
This has created a
crisis, especially for low-income families.
About
500,000 lower-income households are already in housing stress and this will
rise to one million by 2020.
About 170,000 pay more than half their income in rent.
Anglicare’s
report, Rental Affordability Snapshot:
April 2013, found that 600,000 families live in "serious rental
stress", paying more than 30 per cent of the family income on rent.
The
report also analysed the properties available for rental over a given weekend.
It found that of 1,015 Sydney
inner west rental properties available, only one was affordable for families on
income support and only 11 were available for families on the minimum wage.
The
wider social costs of homelessness; increased emergency accommodation demands,
hospitalisation, family breakdown, depression and mental illnesses are
generally ignored.
Over the past decade Labor and Liberal governments in NSW have cut repair
and maintenance budgets and privatised 7,000 public housing properties. The
O’Farrell Government cut $37 million from the housing budget in 2013.
It is criminal to privatise the
dwindling stock of public housing when there is a housing affordability crisis.
A home is a human right, not just another way for the rich
to make even more money.
WHY
IS THIS HAPPENING?
Engels, in The Housing Question,
wrote:
“In reality the bourgeoisie has only one method of
solving the housing question after its fashion-that is to say, of solving it in
such a way that the solution continually reproduces the question anew. This
method is …. the practice which has now become general of making breaches in
the working class quarters of our big towns, and particularly in those which
are centrally situated, quite apart from whether this is done from
considerations of public health and for beautifying the town, or owing to the
demand for big centrally situated business premises ….. No matter how different
the reasons may be, the result is everywhere the same: the scandalous alleys
and lanes disappear to the accompaniment of lavish self-praise from the
bourgeoisie on account of this tremendous success, but they appear again
immediately somewhere else and often in the immediate neighborhood………
“The growth of the big modern cities gives the land
in certain areas, particularly in those which are centrally situated, an
artificial and often colossally increasing value; the buildings erected on
these areas depress this value, instead of increasing it, because they no
longer correspond to the changed circumstances. They are pulled down and
replaced by others. This takes place above all with workers' houses which are
situated centrally….”
Labor and
Liberal governments have been committed to an intensive program of
privatisation. At federal, state and local government levels, government
responsibilities are being gradually handed over to the private sector.
Neo-liberal policies being inflicted
everywhere by capitalism include privatisation of public services and areas of
governance itself as well as the withdrawal of the state from taking
responsibility for the well-being of the people and society at large.
Public
housing has taken a hammering over recent years, with public housing stock
gradually being neglected and/or privatised.
Privatisation
results in a fundamental change in the objective of service provision from one
of providing government or the public with a service based on needs to one
where the service becomes a vehicle for making private profits.
The NSW Liberal Government’s plans for Millers Point are yet another case
of private profit winning out over community needs and wishes.
The O’Farrell Government will not only not have to spend money maintaining
the heritage properties but it will also gain windfall profits by selling
properties which have been in public hands for over 100 years to private
buyers.
It is no secret that there is a push
to gentrify the area, with a six star hotel and high-rollers-only casino
planned for Barangaroo, just streets away.
Millers Point residents point out that NSW Minister Pru Goward has said
they all have to be gone in two years which is just when Barangaroo will be up
and running.
THE
LINK TO GLEBE
A
cruel and greedy plot linking the Millers Point evictions to earlier evictions
and privatisation of public land in Glebe is gradually being exposed.
The
government claims the 99-year leases it is selling at Millers Point will fund
the new development in Cowper Street
in Glebe, but that site was already promised to its former residents who have
now been waiting almost four years.
Public
housing on the Glebe site was demolished in 2011 under the former Labor
government and 130 tenants were evicted, breaking its promise to provide more
public housing and to rehouse its former residents.
The
O’Farrell cabinet approved construction plans for 153 public housing units, 95
affordable housing units and 247 private apartments. Glebe residents fought
hard to keep all the land for public and affordable housing.
Now
we learn (The Sun-Herald, 23/3/14)
that “Treasurer Mike Baird will sign over the title to a large parcel of vacant
public housing land in Glebe to community housing groups within weeks…..
“Non-profit
community housing groups City West and Bridge Housing will construct and manage
the new properties….
“If
construction starts this year, the project is expected to be completed in
December 2016, which coincides with the timeline for moving elderly Millers
Point tenants.”
THE
WORK OF COMMUNISTS
Communists
have a proud record of fighting for public housing and for a better deal for
public housing tenants.
Communists were
in the front line of battles to stop evictions in Redfern and other areas of
the inner city during the Depression in the 1930s.
They were in
the front line when The Rocks were saved from the developers by
residents and Green Bans imposed by the NSW Builders Labourers Federation in
the 1970s.
But goes back further than that.
Patrick Troy says the role of Communist led unions was crucial in the drive
to increase home ownership in the 1960s and writes:
“CPA
pamphlets, especially during election campaigns, recording the party’s policy
on housing referred repeatedly throughout the mid-1940s and 1950s to the need
to control house rents and called for a major increase in house construction.
“In its
submission to the Commonwealth Housing Commission in 1944 the CPA argued for a
massive public housing program. It also proposed that housing be built for
private ownership and sold on terms that restricted its sale for a period in
order to dampen speculation and to prevent the reappearance of large property owners.” (Accommodating Australians by Patrick
Troy, Federation Press 2012, p 135)
OUR
ALTERNATIVE
The development of a large public
sector, where enterprises and services are run on the basis of public need, not
private greed, is a fundamental pillar of CPA policy.
The CPA also fights for a number
of important
principles including
·
A decent home should be a basic human right, not an
opportunity for more profit making
·
The
state must take responsibility for the provision of basic infrastructure and
services to meet the needs of the community and business.
·
There
must be universal access to services -- education, health, public housing,
public transport and so on
·
The
state must provide support for those unable to provide for themselves on an
ongoing basis or during specific times such as during unemployment, old age,
disability, sickness, homelessness, poverty.
It is all
a question of social priorities. The government should re-direct massive,
wasteful funding for environmentally unsustainable road infrastructure like
WestConnex, and invest the money into positive, socially progressive and
sustainable projects like more public housing.
The basic
demands for public housing are:
·
Public
housing which is accessible, good quality, affordable, well-maintained and
safe.
·
Increased
government funding for more public housing and proper maintenance of existing
public housing stock.
·
Governments
to plan development in response to social needs, not the wishes of greedy
developers.
Join the campaign
to defend public housing
and to fight the sell-off of public assets!
