The rebel of Redfern

By Kieran Adair

His name is Geoff Turnbull, and he is Redfern’s resident ratbag.

A former university radical, turned Christian revolutionary, Geoff is now the front man of REDWatch, a group that monitors Government activity in the Redfern-Waterloo area, with a focus on local redevelopment.

In an area like Redfern, where a cash-strapped State Government owns almost one third of the land, and has much to gain from redeveloping it as prime real-estate, he is right to be wary.

“The thing about Redfern-Waterloo is that we are basically four suburbs that have our own minister, and authority, which have taken planning controls away from the City of Sydney… primarily to ensure that they can do what they want to with the Government land,” he told City Hub.

The portrait he paints is a disturbing one, characterised by lies, politics, and spin.

He is critical of the State Government’s lack of transparency, and consultation surrounding the planned redevelopment.

He is also critical of the Redfern-Waterloo Authority, a group given unprecedented powers by the State Government, supposedly to help in “revitalising [Redfern-Waterloo] through urban renewal, improved human services and job creation.”

“Initially they were supposed to address a whole pile of human services issues,” he explained, “right to this day there is suspicion… that they were set up as a real estate operation, and that the human services side of stuff really just became [a smokescreen] to that.”

Geoff is a long time resident of Redfern, and sitting at his kitchen table you can feel how passionate he is on the issue.

REDWatch has become a full-time job for him, as he compiles reports and papers piecing together scraps of information to form a fuller, more transparent picture of the goings on in Redfern-Waterloo.

His latest work is a discussion paper on the planned public housing redevelopment in the area, and it raises some obvious red flags. One in particular stands out; the proposed yuppification – or “alteration of the social mix” – of the area, as the solution to Redferns woes.

Basically this involves diluting the public housing, with private accommodation – at a rough ratio of two private tenants for every one in public housing.

Although the Government has given loose promises that “there will be no cuts to the amount of public housing”, as a result of the redevelopment it is still likely that current residents will still be left worse off.

“Whether the [community] will be better off depends on whether the Government is actually going to resource the human service needs of people and address the issues that are there and aren’t just connected to the quality of the housing they’re in, but the services that give them a decent quality of life,” says Geoff.

He is concerned that the dilution of Redfern may lead to a poorer quality of human services, as current causes for alarm are statistically masked over in Government reports that take into account an expanded middle class presence in the area.

Geoff brings up concerns like this in his role on the Redfern-Waterloo Ministerial Advisory Committee, unfortunately however the Minister – Premier Kristina Keneally – is yet to attend a meeting, leading some to question the motivation behind its establishment.

He will battle on though. A veteran campaigner from the 70s and 80s, Geoff helped run the Philippine Action Support Group, and raised hell as Vice-President of the Univeristy of NSW Student Union.

One thing is certain – Keneally and the RWA are in for one hell of a fight.