Redfern

peter_j

I must have been under a rock, as have just stumbled across articles about Frank Sartor's plans for Redfern, Sydney. For example:

"There is a very real possibility that the minister's opinion is being influenced by developers who have publicly stated they would like to see no Aborigines living on the Block before they invest in Redfern.”
Aboriginal Housing Company quoted in the SMH 03/05
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Hardly-a-black-face-on-the-Block--Sartors-vision-for-Redfern/2005/03/04/1109700683211.html

And then!

"The new State Government body that will oversee the redevelopment of Redfern and Waterloo will be able to bypass heritage laws and consent to its own development plans."
SMH 12/04 Sartor keeps right to annex land around Redfern http://www.smh.com.au/news/Redfern-plan/Sartor-keeps-right-to-annex-land-around-Redfern/2004/12/08/1102182366378.html

Can anyone in Sydney give a slightly more informed view than mine of what is going on. To me it looks like the NSW Government has set up a quasi-governmental body to do its dirty work - the gentrification of Redfern..? What does Whitlam think?

Apparently Sydney has numerous "development corporations". Elizabeth Farrelly is fairly suspicious of them:

The development corporation is conflict of interest made manifest. Its prototype, invented by Margaret Thatcher in 1981, was the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC). Her intention was to sweep away inertia and red tape but the reality, according to British writer David Widgery, was a highly secretive engine of corruption and a government-financed estate agent.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Elizabeth-Farrelly/Psst-Sydneys-future-is-on-the-line/2005/03/14/1110649124778.html

peter_j

Elizabeth Farrelly updates the situation in Redfern:

As the oldest and central urban Aboriginal community in Australia, the Block is the centre. It's where the songlines meet...

The new Redfern plan... will end that, allowing about three-quarters of the original housing. This inhibits rebuilding private houses on freehold (black) land...

For Mick Mundine, Aboriginal elder and Aboriginal Housing Company chief executive, the reasons are simple: "Racism and greed … It's more than bricks and mortar now. It's the morality. And it boils down to this. They want the land."

[later] it's not so much a racist government as a monetarist government, presuming on, and pandering to, a racist market.

SMH 06.09.06