The wall comes down as shutters go up at Redfern

For decades Redfern, the epicentre of Sydney’s Aboriginal community, languished under cruel perceptions as a place of crime and poverty, spoken about by the rest of greater Sydney only in terms of derision.

In recent years that has all been changing.  Partly due to natural social change and partly due to significant work put in by the local community, City of Sydney Council and the Redfern Waterloo Authority (now part of the Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority – SMDA)  Redfern is becoming a vibrant, exciting place that people want to live in and visit.   The area’s unique culture, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, is now seen as a cause for celebration.

The shutters on the corner of Regent and Redfern Streets, as they were.

One of the most noticeable signs of the suburb’s chequered past is the roller shutters that cover the front of many shops in the main streets.  At night and on weekends these security measures of a bygone age close the shops off from the street and present a message of danger, giving visitors the feeling that they take risks by being there and should probably leave.

I was therefore thrilled to be able to witness this week the removal of nine roller shutters from the corner of Regent and Redfern Streets, one of the main gateways to the suburb.  This was done as part of the Roll Up Redfern initiative and shop owners have been bristling with anticipation, ordering new stock and shop fittings and bringing student designers onboard to revamp the look of their shops.  Things are looking up for Redfern!

Regent and Redfern Street, as it is after the shutters were removed this week

Sadly not everyone has gotten behind the new look, new reality of Redfern.  The local police continue to patrol Redfern station with sniffer dogs at an all too frequent rate, occasionally catching young people for minor drug possession offences but mostly just humiliating innocent commuters who are far too often dragged off trains, forced up against walls and publicly searched just because one of the dogs (which give false leads 73% of the time) looked at or sniffed them.

The local community, Council and the RWA/SMDA have done a great job of changing public perception of Redfern, and in doing so changed what life and business are like in the suburb.  However it’s hard to feel that a place is safe and inviting if you’re harassed by a sniffer dog and accused of being a drug dealer the moment the step off the train, so we wont see Redfern live up to it’s full potential until the Police join the party and stop labelling the place, for all the world to see, as a hive of drugs and crime, a label that belies the changing face of the area.

Against the odds and intimidation Occupy Sydney lives on

Last week I met with Occupy Sydney activists to learn of the new tactics being employed by the NSW Police Force to intimidate and harass the continuing Occupy Sydney demonstrators, a small group who is keeping the fight for economic and social justice alive as much of the rest of the world tries to forget it.

The police are now swooping on the Occupy site in Martin Place a number of times a day and confiscating goods deemed rubbish. Of course one man’s rubbish is another’s precious clothing, books, swag or diary. In the case of Occupy Sydney this decision is made by the police and any attempt to protect an item is deemed police harassment.

On the front of one of two small tables was a list of items that had been seized by the police and not returned, these included two laptops – hardly garbage by anyone’s sense of the word. One of these computers belonged to a 17 year old schoolgirl.

No receipts were given to the activists when their belongings were taken to either The Rocks police station or the dump.

To my shock my visit to Martin Place was interrupted by a demonstration of this police tactic when a dozen police officers turned up, made show of putting on their heavy gloves and seized a few cardboard boxes and milk crates.

When one girl tried to protect a roll of canvas a male officer yelled in her face that she would be arrested for police harassment if she didn’t let go. It was obvious the police were looking for any excuse to arrest the demonstrators, as they even tried to take back packs from people’s hands.

Since October 69 have been arrested, 33 charged and 42 fined, though the pettiness of many of these arrests has been shown when charges resulting from them are later dismissed by the courts.

Another quaint reassessment of the law relates to homeless people who police claim are no longer homeless if they join the Occupy site. Although many of the young people who are part of the movement are now virtually homeless themselves apparently their activism changes this and police are arresting or fining them for camping.  Not only is the idea of arresting a homeless person for sleeping outdoors absurd and cruel, it is also in direct contradiction of the NSW Government’s Homeless Protocol.

What is it about having a political message that puts people on such a collision course with the authorities? How can a homeless person become not homeless because they spend time with political activists? Why do the authorities waste their time and our money harassing a handful of demonstrators when Martin Place is occupied 24 hours a day anyway by businessmen or party goers? Why aren’t receipts given when belongings are taken to the police station? How do police decide in the middle of the night what is garbage and what is private property?

In Dunedin and Auckland in New Zealand police refused to act on orders to remove tents and other structures from Occupy sites. In Scotland, Edinburgh officially supports the occupation while many counties in the USA have accepted the sites as expressions of free speech. In Eugene City the council provided lights and increased the homeless budget to support the movement.

This is a very far cry from the tactics being used by Sydney’s police who seem determined to destroy Occupy Sydney by attrition.

Telegraph trying to destroy cycleways and Clover Moore

The Daily Telegraph has once again stretched the definition of “news” to breaking  point with three articles today ranting about the City of Sydney’s cycleways, part of their ongoing anti-Clover Moore campaign titled ”on your bike Clover”.  As many will be aware, I often disagree with Clover Moore, however I still find the vehement attempts to oust her by wealthy vested interests in the Murdoch press to be highly offensive.

The most offensive of the three articles see’s the paper aggressively purporting the opinion that the cycleways should be ripped up.  It seemed like a typical Telegraph editorial so I was rather shocked when I noticed a line at the bottom of the print version directing to an editorial elsewhere in the paper (in fact there were two official editorials along with this unofficial one).  It seems the opinions of the Telegraph’s reporters count as headline news these days.

One particular cycleway, on Bourke St in Alexandria, is currently being reviewed after the City reached an out of court settlement to do so with a local business manager who had launched legal action against it.  The Telegraph were happy to report on the manager’s kind and benevolent attitude in saying “I wasn’t going to play God and tell them to demolish it” but were less keen to give the background to the story.

The legal case was initially intended to be a class action on behalf of 102 businesses, however the lawyers pursuing the case never consulted with most of those businesses before claiming to act on their behalf.  Many of them had no idea the action was being pursued in their names and wrote demanding to be removed from the list once they found out.  The story from August last year is spelled out clearly here and it’s somewhat curious that the Telegraph thought a business manager “not playing God” and an unflattering photo of Clover in a bike helmet were more newsworthy than the highly unorthodox beginning of the court case.

The Telegraph are asking their readers to make submissions to the City’s review of the Bourke St cycleway, presumably with the hope that they will parrot the paper’s line of “tear it up”.  I’d therefore ask that anyone who uses Sydney’s cycle ways, knows someone who uses them or simply appreciates the benefits of being able to cycle away from traffic in a congested urban environment to go to the cycleway feedback page and add a voice of support to counter the anti-cycleway madness being promoted by the Murdoch Press.

International Human Rights Day

In 1948 the United Nations declared December 10th to be International Human Rights Day.  The Occupy Sydney movement, still soldiering on after two months and repeated police actions against them, held a festival day to mark the occasion on 10th of December this year.

I was asked to speak at the commemoration and my comments on the state of Human Rights in Australia, still a shocking affair in 2011, have been placed online by the Occupy Sydney collective at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3_4-DKicjk.

Council dealing with domestic violence

A proposal for a policy to support staff dealing with domestic violence, as originally proposed by the United Services Union (USU), was debated at the last meeting of Council.

While the policy was well intentioned it sadly consisted mostly of “motherhood statements” – the right words were said but they carried little in the way of substance.

One sticking point for me was the issue of special leave.  The  USU had suggested that employees experiencing domestic violence should have access to up to 20 days special paid leave per year to assist them in dealing with the health, legal and other issues associated with domestic violence.  The policy as presented to Council for approval lacked this.

After some debate, the policy was amended to include the provision for some special leave, however such leave will be available only at the discretion of Council officers, an outcome I feel is not as positive as the provision of 20 days leave would have been.

Below is a copy of the statements I made to Council on the matter.

The myth of the alien cockatoos

One of the arguments repeatedly trotted out by the proponents of sulphur crested cockatoo culls in the last year has been that it’s ok to kill these birds because they’re not native to the Sydney region. 

The argument goes that sulphur crested cockatoos were never found east of the great dividing range prior to European invasion, when changes in land use and possible deliberate introduction made them go from absent to thriving.

The 1788 painting of a sulphur crested cockatoo by John Hunter

I’d long suspected this was simply an attempt to justify the shameful killing of these magnificent creatures and I’ve recently come across some historical evidence to back this up.  The evidence comes in the form of a painting of one of these birds along with a description of their local Aboriginal name, “garraway”, in the 1788 book “Birds and Flowers of NSW”, written by John Hunter, the man who would succeed Author Phillip as Governor of NSW and after whom the Hunter Valley and numerous other locations and landmarks were named.  

Further evidence of this traditional name was provided by Les Bursill, historian and archeologist of the Dharawal people, who inhabited the area that now forms southern Sydney and the Illlawarra.  The name (this time spelt “garrawi”) can be found on Les’ collection of local Aboriginal words at http://lesbursill.com/site/aboriginalwords.htm.  Les claims that the suburb of Kirrawee derived it’s name from the cockatoos, although some other sources claim the name comes from a local word for “lengthy”.

The evidence from local Aboriginal groups and early European settlers both point strongly to sulphur crested cockatoos having a long history of occupying the Sydney basin.  It’s my hope that this confirmation that they form part of our living heritage may help dissuade those who consider culls in the future and I’ll certainly be making sure that the true history of this species is understood by the relevant decision makers. 

This story is also a great lesson in why we should do our utmost to protect our history and the traditional knowledge of the first Australians – you never know when the past may come in useful in protecting the present.

More than a sniff of trouble

Living near Redfern railway station I’m all too aware of how ubiquitous police sniffer dogs have become on our public transport network in recent years.  NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge has obtained figures on the limited effectiveness of this invasive means of law enforcement, and has written an article for the ABC’s online opinion page The Drum – http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3728678.html.  I highly recommend it to anyone concerned about civil liberties or the direction of the past and present state government’s “tough on crime” attitude.

Embarking on the Eora Journey

The Eora Journey, a multidisciplinary art and interpretation project to recognise the ongoing history of Sydney’s Aboriginal people, was endorsed for implementation at this week’s Council meeting.

This is one of the most important cultural items to come to Council and  is a highly significant project for all Australians.

In particular it is an important recognition for the first Australians and their hidden history that spans tens of thousands of years.

Recorded European history is a mere 8,000 years old while the Aboriginal occupation of “Warrane”, as Sydney Cove was known to the local people, and the surrounding area is somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 years old.

Burnam Burnam described the Sydney area as the largest outdoor art gallery in the world with 10,000 works of art on rock faces across the region. Few of these site are known to current Sydneysiders as many have been lost or fenced off or hidden from common sight.

Under our feet are countless sacred sites, burial sites, ceremonial sites, campsites, tool making places and middens – the tangible history of the Cadigal people of the Eora nation lost under the built environment of European settlement.

The Eora Journey is a wonderful opportunity for the City of Sydney to honour this lost history and to honour the original Peoples of “Warrane”.

I believe a project such as this, which is long overdue and strongly supported by the residents of the city via their input to Sustainable Sydney 2030, must be overseen, devised and executed by Aboriginal artists, curators and historians.

I would like to acknowledge the wonderful work of curator Hetti Perkins and designer Julie Cracknell in reviewing international practice in contemporary interpretative artworks and the directions they have identified for the Eora Journey.

A range of projects have been suggested, all of which I strongly support, particularly the long overdue recognition of the Coloured Diggers project.

I have been following the struggle that Pastor Ray Minnecon, the Coloured Diggers and Babana men’s group have been through over the past few years in trying to bring this dream to fruition and believe it is a project whose time has come.

One of the main impetuses for the Coloured Digger is the tragic stories told by the Kincella men and in particular the story told by Uncle Cec Bowen whose father went off to serve in the World War II only to return and find his children had vanished into government care. Uncle Cec’s story highlights the great military service of Aboriginal Australians and the injustice they returned to.

Where the Coloured Digger sculpture goes will be up to the Eora Journey Steering Committee and the City’s Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Advisory Panel to decide but I know that the original preferred position was at First Fleet Park, which was sadly not supported by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, and acknowledge that the sculpture needs to go in a meaningful place. 

Hyde Park south would be an ideal location.  To quote Associate Professor Grace Karskens, from the School of History and Philosophy at UNSW, the southern end of Hyde Park has enormous significance for Aboriginal people and the history of Sydney as part of  ”The great Aboriginal contest ground.”  The site:

“was used for contests where Aboriginal law was enacted and which attracted Aboriginal people from as far away as the Hunter Valley, the Illawarra and west of the Blue Mountains.  Non-Aboriginal people also thronged to watch the contests and the results were sometimes reported in the Sydney Gazzette.

Governor Macquarie did try to ban the contests in the colony’s towns through his order of 1816, just after the Appin massacre.  However, since the last contest for which we have a detailed report occurred in 1824, it is clear that Aboriginal people continued to hold contests despite the order.”

Whether the sculpture does end up in south Hyde Park or elsewhere it must be a place of respect and great sensitivity. It must not be hidden away in the botanical gardens, it must be prominent and appropriate.

Another idea which I believe very strongly resonates with that lost history that I described earlier is the harbour lights idea which remembers the wonderful Eora women who went out at night in their  bark canoes to fish with small fires lighting the harbour night. This is an important memory of the Eora that resounds through the years.

Finally I would like to talk about interpretation and historical sources.

One of the first lessons we learnt as history majors at Sydney University was to always question your sources and to analyse the positions of the historians.

We must always understand that history is written by human beings who often reflect the current worldview of the age or who have their own influences and agendas.

We have the “big man in history’ theories, bourgeois historians, class analysis and especially relevent in early australian history the romantics.

Bernard Smith in his important book on Australian art “taste, place and tradition” points out the power of romanticism in the letters, histories and art of the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

As we move into the later twentieth century we are very aware of the highly contested nature of whitefellas interpretations of Aboriginal history and must be very careful and knowledgeable about the nature of the historical sources we use.

This is why it is so important that Aboriginal people and particularly our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander panel have input into how these ideas for the Eora Journey are interpreted and executed.

I congratulate council on this wonderful initiative and look forward to an exciting outcome which acknowledges and highlights the role and importance of aboriginal culture and history in Sydney– past, present and future.

Corporate tour of Sydney

The Occupy Sydney collective conducted a “Corporate Tour” of Sydney last Saturday, protesting outside the premises of a number of institutions that epitomise the inequality of our current economic system.  Stops included the Commonwealth Bank, where the CEO earns in one week close to what the average Australian full time worker earns in a year, Coles, where protestors rallied in support of striking workers at Baiada Poultry, and the US consulate, where protestors highlighted the gross unfairness of that nation’s excessive spending on the military (including stationing troops in Australia) while so many of it’s citizens languish in unemployment without access to healthcare or education.

Following my recent motion in support of occupy Sydney I was asked to address the rally.  The speech I delivered is below.

Support for Occupy Sydney

The global Occupy movement has done an amazing job of highlighting issues of social and economic inequality that are widespread across the world. 

At last Monday’s Council meeting I moved this motion to bring about a peaceful and amicable solution to the ongoing dispute between police and protestors and to help get the message of the protests out to a wider audience.

Sadly the motion was voted down by the Clover Moore Party and the Liberals, producing this much more watered down and effectively toothless version of the motion. 

Below is the text of the speech I gave supporting my motion.