Another slap in the face for Sydney public housing residents
Public housing residents at the Sirius complex in Millers Point, Sydney, are outraged that the government has rejected a unanimous recommendation from the NSW Heritage Council that the building be given a heritage listing.
To add insult to injury, the residents, who are being evicted so that the site can be handed over to rich developers, were told that the bid to have their homes saved had failed hours after media had already broken the story.
According to Barney Gardner, a lifelong resident of Millers Point and spokesperson for the Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks Public Housing Tenants Group, said that a media release went out at 12am on 7 August, and the story appeared in the morning’s papers.
“At 9am on a Sunday morning, a relocation officer was knocking on the doors of the tenants. They said, ‘How you going? Just letting you know the building isn’t going to be heritage listed. Just a courtesy because we didn’t want you to hear about it in the media’”, Gardner told Red Flag.
“They’re saying it’s courteous to knock on someone’s door at 9am on a Sunday morning to tell them the building is going to be knocked down and you have to get out.”
Gardner said the situation is a slap in the face reminiscent of the threat made on their homes two years ago, when Red Flag first reported on the issue.
“This is like 2014 again, when it was announced on national TV and then we had letters slipped under our door”, he said.
Twelve residents remain in the Sirius building, occupying eight units in the 79-unit complex.
Residents are hoping for support from the CFMEU, whose predecessor organisation, the Builders Labourers’ Federation, vowed to protect the building until the end of its lease. The BLF placed green bans on the whole of The Rocks and Millers Point area, which meant that unionised construction workers would refuse to work on any site if it meant the demolition of working class housing.
“There was an old story that the building, if it was to be threatened before the lease was up – and the lease ran for 52 years, from 1978-2030 – that the green ban would be reissued”, Gardner said.
