Waiting for Godot in public housing

Housing NSW (HNSW) is a body in disarray, with levels of organisation and an ability to communicate with clients far below the standards that one should expect from a government department.  Indeed, standards are below even what one would expect of a local landlord, and tenant frustration is palpable.

Government departments are busy places and it’s understandable that sometimes when you call you’ll have to wait a while to talk to someone.  However HNSW take it a step beyond this.  Whether you want to report a maintenance issue or need to speak to a client service officer about feeling threatened by your neighbours ringing up generally results in you being answered by a message that says HNSW is too busy to talk and that you should call back later.  But ‘later’ hardly ever comes, you can call all day and just keep getting the same message.

I know residents of public housing buildings that need to report urgent maintenance issues who have to call at 1am to get through.  Then when you finally do get through the call ends up being lost in the system half the time and nothing ever gets done.

One recent example of this occurred with a tenant in Redfern whose limited mobility resulted in access difficulties in their home.  It took over 6 months just for their situation to be assessed.  Another 6 months have since passed and still no action has been taken, with no indication given on when any action will occur.

In another case a high rise apartment building owned by HNSW had been experiencing flooding on and off for two months as a result of leaking pipes on the upper floors.  When contacted by my office the relevant maintenance staff were unaware of the issue, despite multiple calls from residents over a two month period.

Internal organisation within the department is abysmal.  Inquiries are constantly referred to other parts of the organisation but as soon as you get onto the new part you have to start all over again explaining the situation.  The left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.  This results in so much duplication of effort on the part of both residents and HNSW staff – I guess that could be one explanation as to why they’re too busy to answer the phones.

The incredibly high turnover rate of staff who interact with tenants also adds to the mess.  It takes each staff member a few months to come to terms with local issues but it seems as soon as they’ve done that they end up being shuffled off to another area and you get a new staff member who has no idea what’s going on.  It makes it near impossible for anything to get done.

With over 43 000 people on the waiting list for housing in NSW the waste of time and resources is heartbreaking.  One of the first tests of our new state government, who in opposition loved to cry out that they would ‘stop waste’, will be to see whether or not they can go any meaningful way to fixing the mess that is HNSW.  Lets hope that the transition between governments doesn’t simply result in another set of delays – tenants have had enough of waiting for Godot to arrive.

Barangaroo skate park a step closer

While there has been a lot of bad news surrounding Barangaroo this week there has been one positive story emerge from it all.  The hard work of two committed young skaters, Zane and Rory, and their mother, Juliet Barr, has secured a promise from Shadow Planning Minister Brad Hazzard to recommend a skate park be built at Barangaroo.  See this article for more details.

This is a significant development because after the 26th of March Mr Hazzard is likely to be Planning Minsiter and have final say on what happens at Barangaroo.

Juliet and I have been campaigning for a skate park at Barangaroo since early last year.  As outlined in this letter I have sent to Brad Hazzard on the matter, I successfully put a motion through Council which will see Council and the Barangaroo Delivery Authority work together on this project.

Congratulations to Juliet, Zane and Rory for all the hard work they have put into getting us this far.  The Greens and I will be keeping an eye on the progress at Barangaroo to make sure this long-awaited skate park is finally built.

Barangaroo exemption a toxic act

The decision by Planning Minister Tony Kelly to exempt Barangaroo from the usual laws that apply to contaminated land may harm our harbour and the health of Sydney residents for generations.

Last Wednesday, just two days before the government went into caretaker mode in the lead up to the state election, Minister Kelly changed the state land remediation policy to specifically exclude Barangaroo.  The decision also came just days before judgement was to be handed down in a court case over the matter launched by Australians for Sustainable Development (AfSD), which legal experts predicted would find against Barangaroo.

AfSD argued that the Barangaroo development had not followed the required procedures for the remediation of contaminated land.  However the changes to the rules mean those procedures are no longer required at Barangaroo, removing the main plank in the court case.

Kelly and Premier Keneally have been on the defensive ever since, continually insisting that the change to the rules was simply a clarification.  However the new text of the planning policy specifically states Barangaroo is excluded whilst ignoring other major projects, so the clarification argument holds very little water.

Sydney Harbour now faces an uncertain future with work to begin on the project in a matter of days and none of the normal protections against contamination in place.

Social engineering in Redfern Waterloo

The Redfern Waterloo Authority (RWA) have grand plans for the “urban renewal” of the two suburbs that they oversee and recently exhibited the 2nd stage of the Built Environment Plan for the area.

While there certainly are some interesting opportunities for renewal in the area, I am concerned about a number of aspects of the plan, most significantly the attempts at social engineering on the site.  The area has historically had a very high concentration of public housing tenants but the new plan will see 700 public housing dwellings shifted off-site to a yet to be determined location and replaced with affordable housing – pitting the poor against the very poor.  An additional 3500 private dwellings will also be built.

These concerns, plus numerous other issues relating to things such as building size and density, transport and traffic are detailed in my submission to the RWA on behalf of the South Sydney Greens.