NSW Labor evicts more public housing tenants

The New South Wales Labor government has issued the first round of eviction notices to 150 public housing residents in Sydney’s Waterloo South Estate. On 27 February, tenants received a letter from Homes NSW informing them that they would be “relocated” within six months as part of “Stage One” of the estate’s eventual demolition and redevelopment. Seven hundred and fifty households will be evicted.

“Evicting people from their communities and homes in a housing crisis unprecedented in modern times is an appalling act of cruelty”, Karyn Brown, a Waterloo South tenant and spokesperson for Action for Public Housing, said to Red Flag.

The Waterloo South redevelopment, first proposed under the Coalition government, has been embraced by Premier Chris Minns and Housing Minister Rose Jackson, despite pre-election promises to “Save Waterloo”.

The fate of Waterloo South follows a familiar script: demolish government-owned public housing, displacing tenants, and replace it with a “mixed tenure” development where most new homes are private, for-profit apartments. While Minns insists the redevelopment “doesn’t meet the definition of privatisation”, it is a massive land transfer to property developers.

At Waterloo South, fewer than one-third of the redeveloped homes will be “social housing” (run by private companies who will receive government subsidies). There will be no new public housing (owned and administered by the government).

There are currently 64,280 households on the NSW public housing waiting list. Yet the government is demolishing existing public housing while fast-tracking luxury developments on public land. Labor’s housing policies aren’t about housing those in need; they’re about guaranteeing profits for property developers and landlords.

“The state government promised before and after the election that they would stop the privatisation and sell-off of public housing”, said Karyn. “In Waterloo, they specifically said that voting for them would save our homes. Instead, they are going to demolish 749 homes in Waterloo. This long-standing diverse community will be shattered and scattered. All the time and effort that have gone into making the largest public housing estate in the country a secure and comfortable place to live will be discarded.”

Meanwhile, thousands of private properties sit empty across Sydney, hoarded by investors waiting for land values to rise. At a federal level, last month’s Senate estimates revealed not a single new home had been built since the creation of the Housing Australia Future Fund in 2023. The 340 homes said to have been built due to the scheme were existing properties “acquired and converted” from developers.

The fight to defend Waterloo South is not over. Tenants and activists are determined to resist these evictions. Action for Public Housing will take to the streets on Saturday, 12 April, 1pm at Redfern Community Centre to rally against Labor’s attacks on public housing.