PROTESTING & HOLDING A VIGIL

TONIGHT - PROTESTING & HOLDING A VIGIL" outside of the "McGrath Estate Agents" at 5:00pm-7:00pm, 119 New South Head Rd.

Save Millers Point Community Housing

 

Save Millers Point Community Housing

BUYER BEWARE: SALE DOES NOT HAVE COMMUNITY SUPPORT

The Millers Point Community today said the NSW Government had failed to win community support for the sale of public housing at Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks.

Millers Point, Dawes Point and the Rocks Public Housing Tenants Group Convenor Barney Gardner said the first of the houses to be put up for sale (119 Kent Street, Millers Point) would be auctioned by McGrath Real Estate tonight.

“Premier Mike Baird and Minister for Vaucluse Gabrielle Upton have failed to win support for the sale.” Mr Gardner said.

“They have no political mandate, and no social license for their cruel program to displace an entire community of public housing tenants.”

“Whoever buys these properties will be contributing to the destruction of a close-knit community, while removing many elderly and vulnerable people from their local support networks.”

Mr Gardner also slammed McGrath Real Estate for profiteering from the sale process.

“If McGrath had any sense of corporate responsibility it would have declined the opportunity to tender for this project.”

“The agent knows these sales are morally wrong because they are being held behind closed doors, under the cover of darkness.”

On behalf of the residents of Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks who are being evicted, I call on people to show their disgust by Boycotting McGrath Real Estate and taking their business elsewhere.”

Note: Member of the Millers Point community will be holding a protest vigil outside the McGrath Real Estate headquarters in Edgecliff between 6pm and 7pm tonight.

WHAT: Millers Point protest vigil.

WHEN: Between 6pm and 7pm tonight, Thursday 21 August

WHO: Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks public housing tenants.

WHERE: 191 New South Head Road, Edgecliff.

GABRIELLE UPTON'S COMEDY CAPERS

 By Edwina Lloyd

The spin doctors in Minister Upton’s Office probably thought they were forming a cunning plan to thwart the nasty public housing tenants, but the ridiculous secrecy surrounding the covert auction of the Millers Point properties smacks of Inspector Clouseau rather than James Bond.

I smell a rat.

The sale process has turned into a comical and chaotic display of the Liberal Government’s complete arrogance and disregard for public opinion.

The auctions will be by invitation only, with bidders vetted to make sure they are genuine buyers - and not “plants” who might leak the secret details to either the media or, horror of all horrors, local residents.

It's been reported that bidders at the auctions will be informed of the location just two hours beforehand, via text message.

 About a year ago, the Baird Liberal Government announced that it would destroy this close-knit community. Did they really think the locals wouldn’t be a little upset?

Their arrogant, callous and careless actions once again shows that they just don’t care about what people think of them. They don’t listen to the concerns from the community.

As long as they give property developers and wealthy investors what they want, then the broader community can go to hell.

Certainly, Minister Upton has done everything in her power to give people that impression. She has steadfastly refused to meet with the people she is displacing from Millers Point, failed to respond to their letters, avoided their phone calls and even ducked for cover when they inconveniently turned up at one of her press conferences.

As one of the 60 per cent elderly Millers Point residents, Barney, proclaims, “What is she scared of? Does she think we will attack her with our walking sticks? We just want to share our concerns, we deserve that at least, don’t we?”

Safely ensconced in her Double Bay bunker, where she has almost zero chance of running into someone with an annual income of under $150,000, she can reassure herself that flogging off public housing properties in Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks is somehow in the public interest.

Even though, of course, her rationale to explain the sales is completely flawed and based on a lie.

 Last week Joe Hockey told us that poor people don’t drive cars. This week Gabrielle Upton is showing us that, according to the Liberals, poor people don’t deserve to live in the city.

 It’s that belief which is driving Gabrielle Upton’s program to rid Millers Point, Dawes Point and The Rocks of pensioners and people on low-incomes.

The whole program stinks, the rat is out of the bag, Minister. Cloaking the auctions under a veil of government secrecy won’t disguise the putrid smell of the Liberal’s latest sad, mean scheme.

YOU CAN SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN!

Sign the online petition- https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/save-the-heritage-the-community-of-millers-point-dawes-point-the-rocks

Download, print out and fill out & return the paper based petition-https://clrdoutney.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/millers-point-petition.pdf

Support the campaign and buy a T-Shirt Online-
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Clover Moore is only half the story: shadowy panel devouring Sydney land

Alex Mitchell | Aug 20, 2014
An Orwellian five-member panel will be making planning decisions surrounding Sydney public land in future. Cui bono? NSW political reporter Alex Mitchell reports.



Get used to the name of the entity known as UrbanGrowth NSW, because you will be hearing a lot more about it over the next few years.

It is the Orwellian body created by the New South Wales Coalition government to control the levers of urban planning and development. It has a five-member board to administer multibillion-dollar projects that will devour public land and public spending while delivering massive profits to construction companies and their investors.

Already UrbanGrowth NSW has its hands all over prime Sydney Harbour land near Balmain, called Bay Precinct, the Parramatta CBD and the historic centre of Newcastle.

The state-owned corporation was established in 2012 by then-planning minister Brad Hazzard, a Manly solicitor recently elevated to Attorney-General and Justice Minister.

New Planning Minister Pru Goward, a former ABC presenter and John Howard’s handpicked Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, is now in charge of the body whose mission statement reads like something scripted by Rob Sitch, of Hollowmen and Utopia fame.

According to the official website, its task is “to drive urban transformation that will underpin the future prosperity of urban and regional centres across NSW. We collaborate with government, private and community stakeholders to create a united vision of a project, building a strong sense of placemaking in the renewal process and enabling its delivery.”

In future, major urban projects will be discussed and decided by UrbanGrowth’s cabinet-appointed board members without obstruction from meddlesome councillors, MPs, public servants, community groups or environmentalists.


“If the Coalition succeeds in rigging the ballot in favour of the business community in Sydney’s CBD, why not elsewhere?”

Just as James Packer collared a high rollers’ casino site from the Barangaroo Delivery Authority and VicUrban delivered the construction boom at Melbourne Docklands, so UrbanGrowth is poised to make super profits for developers, fund managers and overseas investors in urban centres in NSW.

It is fulfilling the catchcries of the Baird (and Abbott) governments: “We’re open for business”, “We want to be remembered for building infrastructure” (i.e. any infrastructure at any cost, regardless of its community or cultural value) and “we know best what should be built, where and by whom”.

Accompanying the pro-development push are authoritarian changes to the local government electoral system, starting with greater voting entitlements for big businesses in the City of Sydney.

Premier Mike Baird has given support to legislation proposed in the upper house by the reactionary Shooters Party to arm big business with two votes while ordinary citizens receive one, an objective long advocated by shock jock Alan Jones and The Daily Telegraph.

Sydney lord mayor Clover Moore, an independent, has become the centre of attention, as she claims the proposal to give businesses two votes is aimed specifically at her. But this is only half-true:

Moore’s days are numbered anyway, and if she doesn’t resign at the next council election in 2016, when she will be approaching 70, she faces almost certain defeat.

Major CBD redevelopments in Sussex Street, Chinatown, Haymarket and Millers Point, all blue-chip sites for profit-hungry developers, are the primary considerations in the push for a pro-business Sydney City Council.

Will the embarrassing departure of Newcastle lord mayor Jeff “The Developer” McCloy following cash campaign donations he made to Liberal MPs at the 2011 state election lead to a greater voting entitlement for businesses in Newcastle as well? If the Coalition succeeds in rigging the ballot in favour of the business community in Sydney’s CBD, why not elsewhere?

Balmain MP Jamie Parker, the former mayor of Leichhardt and the first Green in the Legislative Assembly, has condemned UrbanGrowth’s compulsory purchase powers and its lack of transparency.

He has asked why there are no community representatives on the five-member  board, which consists of chairman John Brogden, a former NSW opposition leader, Matthew Quinn, former managing director of Stockland (2000-2013), Robert Hamilton, co-founder of the Mirvac Group, Bonita Boezeman, executive with Time Warner for 23 years, and chief executive David Pitchford, chief operating officer of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and ex-general manager of the mega-development called Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.

“The names don’t fill me with confidence,” Parker told Crikey. “They are a who’s who of big-time developers and their friends.”

Architects, town planners and community groups are waiting for John Robertson’s opposition to commit to scrapping UrbanGrowth NSW and the proposed pro-business City of Sydney voting system.
RESOURCED: http://www.crikey.com.au/?p=453320

Secret auction of Millers Point house

Nicole Hasham, Toby Johnstone

21st August 2014



Under the hammer: The Kent Street house is expected to fetch $1.3m.

 The first state-owned property at Millers Point is going to auction at a secret location on Thursday evening, and skittish authorities have imposed unusually strict rules on those invited to attend.

The house at 119 Kent Street is the first of 293 public housing properties to be sold off at Millers Point and The Rocks.

The last public housing tenant paid $77.20 a week in rent. The property now has a price guide of more than $1.3 million.



Under the hammer: The Kent Street house is expected to fetch $1.3m

 


Millers Point: a community under the hammer

 

Millers Point: a community under the hammer

In a bid to duck media attention and protests over the controversial public housing sell-off, only vetted buyers who are ''in a position to purchase the property on the night'' will be permitted entry.
Under instructions from the government, McGrath Estate Agents have not publicly disclosed the address where the auction will be held.
 
Conditions of entry to the auction, drawn up by Government Property NSW and obtained by Fairfax Media, ban any form of video, audio or photography. Media outlets will be denied entry.
 
The conditions, which must be signed by bidders, include a warning that ''individuals that cause disturbance on the night or during the auction process will be asked to leave or may be removed''. 
 
An initial price guide of more than $1 million was given for the rundown four-bedroom heritage-listed home, but it has since been revised upwards. The property has been vacant since February 2011.
 
Almost 600 public housing tenants will be evicted for the sales program, which has been described by critics as ''social cleansing''.
 
Labor candidate for the state seat of Sydney Edwina Lloyd accused the government of ''ridiculous secrecy surrounding the covert auction''.
 
''The sale process has turned into a comical and chaotic display of the Liberal government’s complete arrogance and disregard for public opinion,'' she said.
 
As  previously reported, the government has also gagged real estate agents from talking to the media, and property inspections are strictly by appointment. Bidders for some homes have reportedly been told they will be given two hours' notice of the auction, due to fears of protests.
 
Fair Trading Minister Matthew Mason-Cox last week rejected suggestions the sales lacked transparency, telling Parliament he had ''complete confidence'' in the auction process.
 
Millers Point community leader Barney Gardner said residents were calling for a boycott of real estate agents involved in the sales, accusing them of ''profiteering out of people’s misery''.
 
To make their views known to potential buyers, Millers Point residents are planning a protest at McGraths Estate Agents’ head office at Edgecliff on Thursday evening, where they believe the auction will take place.
 
''[Buyers] will contribute to the destruction of a close-knit community, and would also be removing many elderly and vulnerable people from their local support networks,'' Mr Gardner said.

A Government Property NSW spokesman said it was ''normal'' for agents to vet prospective buyers ''in any auction of this type''.
 
Potential buyers were required to pre-register for the auction ''given the high level of interest'', he said.
 
Dawn Caruana, a Kent Street public housing tenant, said she would ''fight to the end'' to stay at Millers Point.
 
''There is a community here and I don’t think it should be broken,'' she said.

 Condition of Entry 

1.      As the auction will be held on private property, McGrath reserves its rights.

2.      Admittance to the auction is for bona fide buyers who are in a position to purchase the property on the night.

3.      Due to restricted space, only pre-registrations will be accepted and only two people per group are permitted.

4.      No press or media or other real estate agents will be permitted entry.

5.      No video, audio or still photography will be permitted.

6.      Individuals that cause disturbance on the night or during the auction process will be asked to leave or may be removed.

7.      You will be asked to sign the above conditions of entry on the night.
 Resourced: http://www.smh.com.au/domain/real-estate-news/secret-auction-of-millers-point-house-20140820-1066ai.html