Yesterday, about 150 people turned up at Sydney Town Hall, Gadigal, to demand more funding for public housing.
The federal government has just announced an additional $2 billion towards public housing, but advocacy groups and the Greens party have described this amount as vastly inadequate.
Speakers at yesterday’s rally pointed out how Prime Minister Albanese has used his own personal story growing up in public housing as a campaign strategy, but was now underfunding the very type of housing which supported him during his family’s own time of need.
Wiradjuri and Gomeroi woman, Lorna Munro, spoke about how gentrification and forcibly moving people on (either through physical or economic force) has always been a tactic of control, especially of Aboriginal people, as a part of colonisation.
Carolyn Ienna and Karyn Brown, both facing removal from their public housing, called on the gathered crowd to help resist the redevelopment of their homes in Glebe and Waterloo, while Kristin O’Connell from The Antipoverty Centre demanded that State Housing minister, Rose Jackson, halt the destruction of current housing and build more stock. NSW Greens MP, Jenny Leong, demanded more housing for First Nations people.
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