[Green-Activist] Fw: [Redfern-W] Sartor plan cuts housing on Aboriginal land

[Anne Goddard]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Edward James 
To: Redfern-Waterloo at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 12:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Redfern-W] Sartor plan cuts housing on Aboriginal land


Kirky, I was there supporting those hundreds of others, when the obvious discrimination was pointed out. I marched to the fire and listened to further discussion of issues outside the community centre matters which are festering in mess created by the continueing disrespect for the reasonable expections of the peoples in NSW. I listened as some people pointed out the seeming duplicity of the Labor Party to that old war horse Tom Uren.  Sartor's actions in calling in almost everything his political masters fancy, should by now be an embarrasment to the bulk of those members in the oldest parliament in this country. That is if they respect the Ministerial Code of Conduct? Which is questionable when their very public silence on these momentious changes disrupt the way local communities have conducted devlopement busines in the past. What Sartor is doing should be discussed thought of and published as a systemic political abuse of the Parliamentary process.
Edward James 

  --- Original Message ----- 
  From: Kirky aka Mrs Lyn Welsh-Kirk 
  To: Redfern-Waterloo 
  Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 10:47 PM
  Subject: [Redfern-W] Sartor plan cuts housing on Aboriginal land


  Sartor plan cuts housing on Aboriginal land 
  A plan that will see the number of houses for Aboriginal people on their own land in Sydney cut by 25 per cent has been passed by the NSW Government. Darren Mara reports.

  Posted September 2006

  http://www.reportage.uts.edu.au/stories/2006/indigenous/sartor.html

  The controversial proposal from the Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) to limit development in Redfern was agreed by state parliament this week. 

  The move has brought an angry response from Redfern’s Aboriginal community. They are seeking legal advice to stop the re-development, which will see Aboriginal families housed away from Redfern - an area where there is a strong support network and deep ties since the Whitlam government handed back land in the 70s. 

  That land included a cluster of terraced houses bought by the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) with a $530,000 grant from Whitlam’s government. The cluster became known as The Block. The acquisition was the first urban land rights grant to Aboriginal people. 

  The RWA plan will see those rights removed by the NSW Government to reduce housing on The Block and invest $76 million in commercialising the area. The RWA plan allows for a $16 million investment in Aboriginal affordable housing scheme over ten years but those houses will not necessarily be on The Block. 

  Peter Valilis, spokesperson for the AHC, said the housing company would meet with its legal advisors to discuss its options. He said it is wrong to restrict land use on The Block, whilst increasing it elsewhere. 
  “The government has a responsibility to be even handed when it uses planning controls like this,” said Mr Valilis. “If we discover that they haven’t then I guarantee this will end up in court,” he said. 

  Announcing the final redevelopment plan Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor said it had been amended in response to public consultation and was designed to promote business investment in Redfern. 

  Under the plan ‘mixed-use - commercial/residential’ zoning will apply to The Block, where business activities will be encouraged. 

  This means a 75:1 residential floor space ratio. It was previously 1:1. The .25 cut means that only 46 houses can be built - 16 fewer than previously allowed by planning laws. 

  The 75:1 floor space ratio on The Block is different to surrounding residential developments where ratios range from 2:1 to 7:1, the AHC said. 

  Helen Campbell, director of the Redfern Legal Centre, and member of the RWA’s Human Services Advisory Committee, said the RWA had a ‘questionable’ authority over The Block. 

  “We protest this apparent race discrimination,” she said. 

  “The RWA is essentially the State Government’s real estate agent for the Redfern-Waterloo area,” said Campbell. “The Aboriginal Housing Company is the only non-Government land-holder covered by this Plan that is treated with significant disrespect for its aspirations,” she said. 

  Although the final Plan announced by Mr Sartor has more residential floor space on the Block than the draft plan released last year, Redfern community group spokesman Geoff Turnbull said the RWA plan still discriminates against Aboriginal people on The Block. 

  “This scheme restricts the ability of Aborigines to determine their own future,” said Turnbull. 

  “The Government is saying that if they control housing then it will all be OK, but if the AHC controls it then it won’t work,” he said. 

  Just two weeks ago hundreds of protesters rallied in Redfern to protest the RWA plan to cut Aboriginal housing. They were also angry at the sidelining by the RWA of an alternative plan by the AHC for 62 houses for Aboriginal people on the site. 

  At that rally up to 400 people gathered outside the RWA offices in Lawson Square, Redfern to hear condemnations of the RWA plan from AHC chief executive officer Mick Mundine, Robert Walsh, and chairperson of the Metropolitan Lands Council and Anglican Bishop of Gippsland, John McIntyre.
  Bishop McIntyre told the gathering that The Block was owned under freehold title by the Aboriginal Housing Company. 

  “Who is to say that the Aboriginal people can’t do on this land what they want to do?” he said. 

  “This government of New South Wales and this Minister [Mr. Sartor], are involved in a racist act by denying the Pemulwuy Project to the Aboriginal Housing Company,” he told the protesters.
  The Pemulwuy Project is an AHC plan for 62 homes on The Block - 20 for rental use and 42 for Aboriginal home ownership. 

  The AHC’s plan is called Pemulwuy after an Aboriginal warrior who in the late 1700s united Aboriginal clans to resist the British. 


  PEACE & GOD BLESS
   
  Kirky a Koori in Parkes. Oz.
  Wife, mum, nan, sista, aunt, cuz & friend 2 all.
  http://kirkys-world.tripod.com
  1 stick can B broken ~ a handfull 2gether can't B broken ~ In Solidarity iz Strength.
__._,_.___ 

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