Sydney tent city triggers political row
AUSTRALIA: As Australia enjoys the world’s longest unbroken run of economic growth - 26 years and counting - a sea of tattered tents occupied by homeless people has arrived in Sydney’s financial heart.
About 150 people have set up home in 50 tents opposite the country’s central bank headquarters in Martin Place.
The city of tents has now provoked a political row between the premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, and Clover Moore, the long-serving mayor of Sydney.
Berejiklian blames Moore for sympathising with the homeless people and failing to call police to evict them. ’’I am completely uncomfortable with that tent city,’’ Berejiklian said. But Moore said Thursday: ‘‘It’s not illegal for people to be homeless - for some people it’s a consequence of the housing affordability crisis in Sydney.’’
Among those people urging the swift removal of the camp is Tony Abbott, the former prime minister, who has said that police should act ‘‘with great vigour, if necessary’’. Australia’s best-known and best-paid conservative radio host, Alan Jones, the former Test rugby coach, lives near by in a multimillion-dollar waterfront apartment and tweeted this week: ‘‘No-one is unsympathetic to homeless people but they don’t belong in eyesore tent city.’’
The government of New South Wales and its police commissioner said they were ready to dismantle the tents and a kitchen.
Pru Goward, the social housing minister, said: ‘‘We will move these people on. I don’t care what it takes.’’ Mick Fuller, the state police commissioner, said that officers would support the evictions, adding: ‘‘If one person puts a step out of line, I’ll throw them in the back of the truck.’’
One of the organisers of the camp, Lanz Priestly, 72, has just fathered his 12th child with a woman of 20. He said that property should not be seen as a high-yield investment. ‘‘The only way I can see to do that is take housing out of the commodities basket,’’ he said. Sydney’s house prices have accelerated by 13 per cent over the past year and the median price is almost $A1.5 million. ‘‘This needs to solved in a way that our grandchildren don’t have to fight these same issues later on,’’ Priestley said.
One person who cannot have avoided noticing the expanding number of tents below his office is the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe. A week ago, he contradicted his boss, Scott Morrison, the country’s treasurer, by insisting that the differences between the haves and have-nots were not shrinking.
While the government of Malcolm Turnbull has denied that inequality is worsening, Lowe told a charity lunch that it could present challenges for government. ‘‘If you have rising inequality it may be harder to get policies of the middle ground.’’ - The Times