The Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) called a meeting to inform residents about its housing development, the Pemulwuy Project, at the Block in Redfern on March 9.
About 200 people packed the Redfern Community Centre to ask questions of AHC about its plans to increase the size of the development. After just 25 minutes, AHC closed the meeting down as the audience loudly voiced its opposition to the radically enlarged plans.
The new plan means that the Pemulwuy Project will grow from six to 16 stories and provide accommodation for 522 students, up from 154. There will be no new social or Aboriginal housing, which remains at just 62 homes. The AHC plans to sell the newly built student housing to commercial operator Atira on a 99-year lease.
AHC chairperson Alisi Tutuila told the meeting the rent would be paid upfront, allowing 62 affordable homes for Aboriginal people to be built at the same time as the rest of the development with 鈥渘o financial burden, no debt, no handing over of debt or legacy to the next generation鈥. She said no part of the land would be sold.
AHC general manager Lani Tuitavake then attempted to frame the Pemulwuy Project as the realisation of The Block's Aboriginal history.
鈥淭his is for the next generation,鈥 she said. 鈥淔or years we have endured substandard housing, crime and mismanagement. There are people out there that deserve an opportunity to be able to raise their children and to be able to live in good standard housing for Aboriginal people.鈥
Her comments were met with shouts of 鈥淵ou sold us out鈥, 鈥淲e don't want it鈥 and 鈥淵ou don't speak for Black people鈥. 鈥淥ur generation has been displaced,鈥 a young woman shouted from the back of the hall.
Lyall Munro, the sole surviving member of the group of eight who in 1972 were听given a grant of $530,000 from the Gough Whitlam government that allowed the AHC to buy its first houses in Redfern, spoke out against the new plan, despite the microphone being cut off.
鈥淵our plan is not a reflection of our plan鈥, he said, before describing the AHC's proposal as an 鈥淎sian student Taj Mahal鈥.
"This has become emotive. However, it's been an emotive situation for many, many years."
鈥淲here here has it been mentioned about the Aboriginal homes, about the dreams of the founders of this place?鈥 he asked.
鈥淚t's not just Martin Luther King who had a dream. There鈥檚 Aboriginal people, Black Australians who had a dream and that dream鈥檚 been thwarted and it鈥檚 sad.鈥
The meeting was due to run for 90 minutes but was brought to an abrupt end as a lone female protester carrying a banner reading "Battle for the Block round 2" tried to enter the meeting. She was roughly shoved and pushed out of the room as shouting and heckling from the floor increased.
Munro's speech showed the deep divisions that have emerged between the AHC and 麻豆传媒 of the Aboriginal community since the 1970s. Critics of the AHC say it is now a private operator that has long since abandoned its community organisation roots.
The Redfern Tent Embassy occupation over 2014鈥15 only ended after it was given assurances that Aboriginal housing would be prioritised at the Block. Specifically, the protesters were assured that all 62 dwellings in the Pemulwuy Project would be built for Aboriginal families. This is not the AHC鈥檚 latest plan.
"I'm not shocked it ended this way," Nathan Moran, Chief Executive of the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council said after the meeting.
"Given that this is the only time the community's had a chance to talk about this project or hear about it with some factual information, it was natural that we would have that response and reaction.
鈥淥riginally the place was Aboriginal affordable housing for a community and now we鈥檙e talking about commercial developments for the benefit of non-Aboriginal students.
鈥淥n so many levels this project fails the community.鈥
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