Martin Place tent city: Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward says it’s a mockery
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has backed Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward’s comments, where she described squatters living in the tent city at Martin Place as a “mockery”.
NSW
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FAMILY and Community Services Minister Pru Goward said homeless squatters living in the tent city at Martin Place was a ‘mockery’ and said they will be moved on.
Speaking to Alan Jones on Radio 2GB this morning, Minister Goward said, “What frightens me as a Minister for Family and Community Services is that every day I walk down there I think if there was a fire, if that kitchen got on fire, or there was some other public accident.
“It would actually be a catastrophe because you won’t get people out. People in the tents — anybody passing by the tents — would get caught up in the fire and you can’t get people in. You can’t get fire brigades in; you can’t get people to safety.
“This is a critical public safety issue that keeps me awake.
“I’m not letting Clover Moore off the hook, the fact that she has agreed to meet tomorrow is a big step and we will move these people on.
“I don’t care what it takes, we will move these people on and of course we are looking at other options if Clover Moore is unwilling to play her part.”
NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said it’s not the first time the police have faced this.
“We will resolve this and they will be gone at some stage hopefully in the very near future, but this won’t be the last time we will have a problem with the mixed homeless group with a taste for protest activity.
“We have prosecuted these types of matters before, for camping against signage, but we’ve lost all these in court because it is a real challenge in balancing the needs of the homeless and the current laws in place.
“The best way to resolve this is for the local government to use its powers to take away the tents, the barbecues and gas bottles, police will support that operation. and if there is someone who is breaking the law, then we will put them in the back of a truck.”
The Daily Telegraphreported 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.
The Daily Telegraph understands the couple were offered permanent housing in a unit on Pittwater Rd with a market rent of $530 a week, but they would have paid only $120.
The deal included a bed, television and other furniture but was knocked back on July 17.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has weighed into the debate over the rapidly expanding shanty town, following a war of words between Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore in which both accused each other of inaction.
Mr Abbott said police needed to clear Martin Place “politely if possible, but with great vigour if necessary”.
“This is a protest ... it’s a protest which is obstructing people going about their daily business and it must be moved on,” he said.
NSW Police yesterday said its move-on powers were “based on reasonable grounds that a group is obstructing traffic or people, intimidating, harassing and/or involved in other illegal activity”.
“The NSW Police Force will continue to support responsible parties, in this instance the City of Sydney Council, should we be required to assist in moving persons on to prevent any breach of the peace and/or take action where a criminal offence has been identified,” it said.
Social Housing Minister Pru Goward said it was “disappointing” that some people who had been sleeping in Martin Place had turned down good offers of permanent accommodation, in suburbs such as Kingsford, Stanmore, Hunters Hill, Redfern, Chifley and Eastlakes.
“No one in Sydney needs to sleep in a tent in Martin Place, there is support available,” she said.
“Anyone who engaged with our frontline workers on the ground in Martin Place has been offered accommodation.
“Department of Family and Community Services housing staff visited the area earlier this week and spoke with every person sleeping in a tent unless they chose not to unzip it.”
Tent city resident Andrew Barr, who said he hoped to secure housing of his own at some point, did not mince words about others who had turned down accommodation.
“I get pissed off,” Mr Barr said. “If you want to live on the street, live on the street.
“Don’t ask for help and throw it back in their face.”
The “honorary mayor” of tent city Lanz Priestley said some of the accommodation offered to tent city residents was not “up to scratch”.
Hazel Hohaia has been sleeping in a Martin Place tent and said it was “silly” of people to turn down offers of housing.
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