Defiant tent city mayor hits back at government for ignoring issues
UPDATE: Residents of Martin Place’s tent city have vowed to set up at another site in Sydney after finally vacating the heart of the CBD.
NSW
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RESIDENTS of Martin Place’s tent city have vowed to set up at another site in Sydney after finally vacating the heart of the CBD yesterday.
Self-declared “mayor” of Martin Place Lanz Priestley told The Saturday Telegraph he would move his group to another location.
After more than six months camped outside the Reserve Bank, the group departed peacefully after police apparently appealed for them to leave on Thursday.
It came hours after Parliament passed legislation to allow the state government to forcibly remove the group if they were considered a “public safety issue”.
Mr Priestley said some of the group would move to friends’ homes while others had nowhere to go.
“Our intention is to take this indoors. It’s 100 per cent crowd-funded, there is no government or council participation,” he said of the planned new location, which he refused to disclose.
Last night just a handful of tents remained, most left empty by people who had abandoned the camp. At the start of the week The Saturday Telegraph counted more than 50 tents in Martin Place, housing up to 100 people.
Council staffers cleared out crates, chairs and rubbish soon after residents began clearing out from dawn.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore declined to comment on the matter yesterday, but Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward said her department had permanently housed 86 people from the camp.
Camper Tony Castle revealed that before he found himself living on the street he worked for City of Sydney removing homeless people’s property. He has lived in Martin Place for seven weeks.
“The City (of Sydney) guys, when they saw me they said ‘Oh, good to see you’. My former colleagues, they still work there,” he said. “One of the guys, he nearly cried.”
At a Property Council lunch yesterday, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said: “One area of housing affordability that I believe needs further attention is in the rental space ... But for long-term renting to be a viable alternative, it has to be affordable and it has to be secure.”
Homeless man Mii Tumatamgr, who has been on the streets of Sydney for three years, said he would return to Belmore Park near Central station.
He said a major rodent infestation drove him to Tent City to begin with.
“There are too many rats there, eating my tent,” he said.
Before moving to Belmore Park, Mr Tumatamgr lived outside the state library.
“I was there, with some friends,” said the Cook Islands native.
The pulling down of Tent City comes as it follows Monday’s immediate collapse of a truce negotiated between Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and the ‘mayor’ of the homeless camp.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian had announced her government would change the law to empower it to kick people off Crown Lands within the boundaries of City of Sydney if they were determined to be conducting “unauthorised activity that comprises public safety”.
“This is a course of action I wish I didn’t have to take, but it’s a course of action we have to take because to date the City of Sydney has not done what it has within its power to do and what it should have done,” Ms Berejiklian said.
She also questioned the “motives of some on that site”.
“I’m concerned about people who genuinely are homeless who may be caught up and manipulated by what’s going on at that site,” the Premier said.
However, Mayor Moore said Ms Berejiklian’s move to change laws was “potentially risking conflicts between police and vulnerable homeless people as in Melbourne”.
This is despite in 2015, City of Sydney controversially confiscated tents and other property from a homeless camp in Wentworth Park.
Earlier this week, The Daily Telegraph reported homeless squatters in the tent city at Martin Place knocked back housing in Kingsford and Stanmore, and one couple snubbed a home in the up-market riverside suburb of Hunters Hill without even looking at it.