NSW: When the NSW police burst into five Sydney homes in Redfern in the early hours of Thursday morning they took with them an entourage of media stooges and public housing authorities eager to find more vacant public housing for the 80,000 people on the DOH waiting list.But if the police go into any home they could find something illegal, no doubt!
I saw police holding up a plastic bag on CH/10 news with what looked like a small marijuana bud about as big as a five cent piece saying words to the affect, "small green leaf matter."
Therefore the chances of the police and media sustaining some charge or conviction or making those people look guilty as sin is always there for the taking. In short you can be severely exploited by the powers that be!
Surely there are legal and privacy issues involved when police are going to arrest people. I call on civil liberty lawyers to look into those legal and privacy issues.
The fact that now, when people who reside in public housing who are arrested can be publicly evicted, that is another worry.
Joe Tripodi the Housing Minister was proud to announce in the NSW Parliament that those who were arrested would be evicted from their public housing. Even though they were not yet found guilty of any crime. And even worse than that made to look guilty by the media.
Were these people guilty of anything? Or simply drug users and not dealers? Yet to be determined by a court of law, but they were dealers according to the police and the media stooges at 6.am in the morning, all working together to sustain a public image that could have been so wrong and that could have severely misrepresented those people they arrested.
Police could go to any drug users housing commission home and seize drugs and the housing minister could throw any drug user out onto the street? This must concern the community because it is wrong that people who take drugs should merely be accused of dealing, charged for being a user and then dumped onto the street.
State Opposition Leader John Brogden just recently backed a plan by Bob Carr to overhaul public housing.
"We support a good plan like this," Mr Brogden said.
"For the hundreds of thousands of people across the state who are on the waiting list for public housing, this (plan) will make it easier for them to get into public housing."
Or just raid their homes and kick them out, 14 at a time?
Now PUBLIC housing tenants will no longer be entitled to government housing for life, and some tenants will face higher rents, the New South Wales Government has announced.
So there is a major public housing shortage at the present time. NSW Premier Bob Carr recently announced the biggest shake-up of public housing in 50 years, with tenants on moderate income to be encouraged to move into the private rental market.
New tenants will be given limited leases including short-term leases of up to two years and medium-term leases of between two and 10 years. Elderly and disabled people will be entitled to 10-year leases.
But the NSW Council of Social Service (NCOSS) warned the reforms would only marginally cut the waiting list for public housing, which stood at 80,000 people.
"There's an element of that in it (cutting the waiting list) but it's only going to affect 2500 people at the most," council director Gary Moore said.
NCOSS doubted whether people forced into the private rental market would find affordable housing in Sydney.
"We're concerned about the group of so-called modest-income earners for whom the private rental market is seen as the salvation," Mr Moore said.
"It's very unlikely they'll find a way into affordable private rentals in Sydney."
Despite the reforms announced, fixed-term leases were not new and had been in place for all new public housing tenants since November 2002, he said.
Warnings went up when police and DOH decided to work together as a force now people are being accused and thrown out of their homes onto the streets of Sydney.
Department of Housing units in Morehead Street and Young Lane were raided. The raid was to be connected with the supply of drugs, predominantly heroin?
The police raid was to be connected? Is connected? Looks like it's connected, to drug dealing? So the dealers are not users? Drug users not yet found guilty of dealing should be kicked out of their homes?
The raids began at 6am (AEST) and police were still at the scene gathering evidence at 9.30am (AEST). The spokesman said those arrested had been taken away in paddy wagons and were 'expected' to be charged with drug supply and expected to be kicked out of their public housing because of a public housing shortage and anyone will do!
People: 'Prisoners' of Drugs'
People who are addicted to heroin usually take the drug because it relieves them of problems such as low self-esteem, distrust and fear of abandonment. They may have poor communication skills & poor relationship skills.
Ed: Don't be suckered by Carr government propaganda
Whatever you might think about the right of individual tenants to keep their public housing if their situation improves the fact is that there are hard pragmatic reasons for maintaining a mixture of low and middle income earners in public housing estates.
The higher your income gets the less rent subsidy you receive, so in effect the middle incomers subsidise the maintenance of the whole estate.
Also, if you drive out everyone who can afford to beautify and properly maintain their place you eventually get to the point where all tenants with any sense of community pride abandon the estate. Then you get the sort of unsolvable problems we saw at the Villawood Housing Estate and the government sends in the bulldozers - followed by developers and their McMansions.
Tripodi is also being disingenous in suggesting that the police raids were the result of tenant complaints about drug dealing. Housing tenants are now required to keep 'incident diaries' about possible law-breaking on the estates. Those who refuse to be part of this DoH Stasi network are themselves liable to be evicted. So when the Department of Housing wants to evict tenants they can requisition the diaries, claim that they show tenants are worried about crime in the estate, send in the cops, then evict those arrested whether or not there is any evidence against them.
So its the government policies which lead to the destruction of trust and social capital in housing estates. Then the very community breakdown the government has caused is used as an excuse to shut down public housing and turn the real estate over to Carr's developer mates.
By Not Yet Guilty posted 6 May 05
Related:
'The Changing Face of Crime in Sydney?: Mean streets or Lost Suburbs' This forum will consider the recent social unrest on the streets of Sydney. The forum will look at areas such as: public order reporting; the essence of alienation for youth, indigenous and ethnic communities; tensions in public housing; political denial of social responsibility; and community/urban renewal and crime prevention.
NSW Police Force: 2 dead, $1 million dollars to catch a thief?
NSW police have expressed concern about their response to the Macquarie Fields riots in south-western Sydney after a police pursuit that killed two young youths Dylan Rayward 17, and Mathew Robertson, 19 that went horribly wrong.
Police PR Stunt: Farce force?
The POLICE FORCE were under increasing pressure last night, to arrest (police pursued) death crash suspect and alleged driver, Jesse Kelly, but were they?
CARR, FAITHLESS?, BROGDEN, SLAYER!
THE COMMUNITY has issued an ultimatum to the lawless Police Force holding Sydney's streets to ransom: If you want respect give respect....
All My Friends Are Getting Married
New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney says police will look to the future in the violence-affected area of Macquarie Fields, in Sydney's south-west.
NSW Police Force: Deaths in custody?
A police officer has been hit by a brick thrown by a community member in the third night of protest in Sydney's southwest.
Community disturbed by riot violence?
Don't blame it on the social mix, don't blame it on the housing estate, don't blame it on the dysfunctional community but blame it on the Police Force!
OUR STORIES MUST BE TOLD. THEY HAVE TO BE
On Sunday 13th February, a Community gathering will be held to enable all people to remember the death of one of our young Community members, 'TJ' Hickey.
Whitewash over Hickey's death
The New South Wales coroner has cleared police of any responsibility for the death of Aboriginal teenager Thomas 'TJ' Hickey.
Redfern police need education not weapons
NSW police want new offensive equipment including long-range capsicum spray guns and modified armoured vehicles capable of spraying tear gas following a damning report on the Redfern riots in Sydney earlier this year.
Carr defends Redfern riot fallout
But such is the fact that police can do no wrong according to authorities that one wonders what benefit to the community this report would be other than to protect the police again.
The Young Man From Kamilaroi
On Monday, 5 July 2004, the Hickey Family and their supporters will come together in the Glebe Coroners Court with the Redfern Police, the same police, specifically unknown at this time, who pursued the Young Man to his death by impalement.
Police stalkers set to escape
The real issue was posted it read "Wanted child murderers"!
Payback over Redfern riot after death in custody
A 37 year-old woman will appear in court today charged over her alleged involvement in a riot in Redfern on Sunday night.
Riot in Redfern over death in custody
The reported claim that 50 police were injured during rioting in Redfern over a death in custody is nothing more than a counter claim required to balance the argument that Thomas Hickey wasn't chased to his death by police.
Redfern police 'need to be made accountable'
POLICE have no right to demand increased support to patrol Redfern in the wake of one of the worst death in custody cover-ups by police in Australian history.
"If I Could Turn Back Time" Daily Terror, CH/7
THE real cause of last month's violent Redfern riots was the death of teenager Thomas "TJ" Hickey but perhaps only one element of the racism, harassment and bullying by the New South Wales police force and in this case Redfern police at the Block.
Was Thomas Hickey payback?
Yesterday it was alleged police faced a potentially deadly confrontation with locals of a redfern housing block last week when a gun was grabbed from an officer's holster and held to his stomach.
TJ HICKEY MEMORIAL MARCH AND VIGIL
Gather at the Block at 9am March to Phillip Street Redfern, "Turanga Block" vigial at site of "TJ's" death. March to Redfern Police Station to leave list of demands regarding the enquiries into his death.
