Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight on a very serious issue. Today, the O'Farrell government dropped a bomb on the inner city of Sydney. They announced with no consultation and no warning that they will sell almost 300 properties in Millers Point in Sydney; 300 homes that have been public housing, some for generations. There are families that have lived in Millers Point for one or two or three generations.

People often ask what is the difference between a house and home. The difference between a house and a home is the family, the people who live there. You could just as easily ask the same question about a suburb. What is the difference between a suburb and a community? The difference between a suburb and a community is the people who live there, who have put their roots down there, who have sent their children to school there, who know each other and their neighbours and who help each other. That is what Millers Point is. It is a community with a long history and it is a community that has supported and cared for each other throughout that long history.

We are talking about an area that has a history as long as the European settlement of Sydney. For that time, there have been working class people living there—stevedores, people who worked on the docks, people who worked on the Hungry Mile, people who saw the depression, people who saw the plague and people who have seen Sydney change and grow through the generations. Those people are part of the heart and soul of our city.

We have seen cities around the world where working class people cannot afford to live in the centre of the city. Sydney will become such a city if the O'Farrell government proceeds with this decision. This is a devastating decision and a deep shock to the tenants, who have lived there all their lives and, in some cases, are the second or third generation of people to have done so. With no consultation, they have been told today that they will have to move from homes that have been theirs all their lives.

I condemn the O'Farrell government for making this decision, but I have to say that I also hold the Abbott government responsible for this. This is a government that refuses—

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