‘No slackin’ off now, girls.”
The Aboriginal Housing Company chief, Mick Mundine, has a
reputation in government circles for being a tough nut; in discussions over the
future of Redfern, politicians and bureaucrats have found him stubborn and
uncompromising.
They think that’s bad. Try taking the women’s circuit class
at Mundine’s gym on the Block. “Come on!” he barks at a girl easing
off during sit-ups. “One! Two! Three! Up to 10 now!”
Mundine’s gym looks like a scene out of the Bronx: peeling posters of boxers past and present adorn the
walls, including plenty signed by his famous nephew Anthony “Choc”
Mundine.
Pugilists practise on each other in the ring while other men
slouch on weights machines watching. Everything smells like sweat and old
metal.
People pay $8 to get in – if you’re broke, it’s free.
“The idea,” explains Mundine, “is to get
people in this area keepin’ fit.”
Recently, he says, government funding to the gym was cut off
because too many non-Aborigines were going. The shifting demographics at
Mundine’s gym hint at the rapid change happening all over Redfern.
Just who is controlling that change, and who it benefits, is
much debated in government and the local community.
In setting up the Redfern Waterloo Authority, the State
Government handed itself a mandate to revitalise the troubled suburb. The
authority wrote three blueprints for change – the Built Environment Plan, the
Human Services Plan and the Employment and Enterprise Plan. The Built
Environment Plan is about overhauling Redfern station, creating new shops and
apartments where Eveleigh railyards used to be, bringing 18,000 jobs and 4000
new residents to the area.
To fund this plan, the authority has brokered the sale of a
local hospital, a school and other assets.
The Employment and Enterprise Plan sets out strategies to
train and place local people in jobs, while the Human Services Plan is aimed at
addressing disadvantage in the area.
“Most people I speak to in Redfern and Waterloo want to see the place change for the
better. They want to see economic growth, jobs and training opportunities, new
community facilities, better community safety and improved human
services,” says the Redfern and Waterloo Authority chief, Robert Domm.
“The challenge, as always, is to properly manage the change so that the
desired social outcomes are achieved.”
Domm is right about the locals wanting change. However, many
in the community fear the plans will lead to a change that benefits only
newcomers.
“We are a small example of what could happen if the
people don’t get listened to,” warns Michael Gravener, the co-ordinator at
Redfern’s 100-year-old community centre, the Settlement. He was getting on with
his work – trying to keep local children out of the juvenile justice system –
when in 2002 some newcomers wanted change.
“Some very powerful locals got on the Settlement’s
committee and sold this building, sold the house next door, sacked the board.
They wanted to get rid of their own neighbourhood centre,” he says.
“That’s what I see as the future.”
Gravener sees Redfern’s social disadvantage at its most
heartbreaking.
“Sixty-eight young people I know have died of unnatural
causes – drugs, alcohol, abuse, murder – that’s in the last few years. They are
Aboriginal,” he says. “I’ve got 20 kids I have to pick up from the
pool this afternoon. At least 50 per cent of those kids will probably serve
time.”
That could be prevented, says Gravener, if more of the $300
million funding for the Built Environment Plan were diverted to long-term
early-intervention strategies.
“We do a program where we try to prevent kids going to
prison. We take kids at risk of homelessness … we took [some] up the bush and
Aboriginal people ran a program on horsemanship, relating to horses and
learning basics like a healthy, trusting relationship,” he says.
“They are expensive things to do but it’s
cycle-breaking stuff.”
One of the main complaints from people such as Gravener is
that the Human Service Plan, the authority’s blueprint for addressing social
disadvantage, has no new funding. There will be a new health centre where the
courthouse used to be, but otherwise welfare services are being told to find
money from within existing budgets.
Domm says many of the services already receive government
funding and “simply throwing more money at problems is no guarantee of
success”. He points to the authority’s Employment and Enterprise Plan as a
cycle breaker. “For those who may have a degree of welfare dependency,
this means creating training, enterprise and job opportunities which are
leveraged off the new developments,” he says.
Won’t those jobs help lift those locals Gravener is worried
about out of poverty? “There’s a lot of really well-intentioned focus on
employment. Well, one of the huge issues is that lot of people round here are
not employable,” Gravener says. “It’s OK to talk about employment,
but do people have a roof over their head? Do they suffer from trauma or an
abuse problem? You are not addressing the real issues here.”
The focus of the authority, he says, has been on providing a
revitalised Redfern for future residents, rather than addressing the problems
of current inhabitants.
A Redfern resident and co-ordinator of the activist group
REDWatch, Lyn Turnbull, has watched the suburb evolve over 25 years but the
authority’s changes will be the most significant. “The change in the
demographics is already happening round here. The place has been slowly
gentrified over a long period of time. When governments force that ahead you
end up with a very socially disparate community,” she warns. “The contrast
between lifestyles becomes even greater and the social tensions are likely to
increase rather than decrease.”
As executive officer of the Redfern Legal Centre, Helen
Campbell was asked to sit on a committee to advise the Minister for
Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor, on issues that needed to be addressed in the
Human Services Plan.
“We have committed a lot of time and energy in
participating in the various advisory committees. I am very disappointed that
in two years of sitting on the Human Services ministerial advisory committee,
the minister has never attended a meeting,” she says.
She takes a dim view of government instructions to community
groups to find money from existing budgets to fix social problems.
“This idea that we can find some efficiencies – what,
sack a few secretaries? We never had any secretaries,” she says, adding
that most of the groups rely on volunteers. Campbell has seen the place change, too, and
getting a better social mix is a good thing, she says.
“But if you look at what they call East
Redfern – Chalmers
Street and Elizabeth Street – the new developments
there are almost gated communities. Nice new units with very high walls, very
secure gates,” she says.
Back near Mundine’s gym, locals hang out in front of some of
the oldest, most decrepit houses in Sydney.
One, Rodney, who doesn’t want his last name used, has been in the area 23
years. He wants to see it change.
“I hope it’s different in 10 years’ time,” he
says. “Like Sydney
itself, it’s been brought down by a big increase in crime and drugs, and any
employment for locals is good but a lot of us have criminal records so it’s
hard.”
“We have to accept responsibility that we set the
standard for our kids. But I hope they do rebuild Redfern with new and better
houses.”
Like the apartments planned for Wilson Street?
“Nah,” he says, sweeping an arm up at the
crumbling places. “Inside all these the interior is coming apart. They
could do with a paint job, at least. Changing this could help people a
bit.”
Unfortunately for Rodney, that’s not part of the $300
million Built Environment Plan or any State Government plan.
Photo: Dallas
Kilponen – Just trying to keep them fit … MIck Mundine running a circuit class
in his Redfern gym, which has had its government funding cut.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/in-different-corners/2007/09/06/1188783415586.html