The Future of Public Housing

Date: Friday, 18th October 2024

Time: 1:00pm—2:00pm

Location: The Factory Community Centre

The future of public housing is at a crossroads in Australia. Despite a new national housing and homelessness plan pending, and additional funding to finance 40,000 social and affordable homes over the next 5 years, there is widespread concern that current policy and funding commitments are a far cry from the broad based approach to public rental housing which has supported so many Australians in the past, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Our eminent speakers reflect on the past century of public housing in Sydney, as well opportunities for a re-invigorated public and social housing sector in the future, asking how the Australian experience compares to public housing elsewhere and what alternatives for public housing we might imagine. Join us to discuss the history, trajectory, and types of public housing, exploring what public housing is and what it could be.

Confirmed Speakers

Rebecca Pinkstone, Chief Executive of Homes NSW

Alistair Sisson, Macquarie University

Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore, City of Sydney

Norrie Maywelby, Public Housing Tenant and Tenants Representative

Karyn Brown, Public Housing Tenant and Tenants Representative

Chaired by

Dr Greta Werner, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Henry Halloran Research Trust at The University of Sydney

Rebecca Pinkstone has been named the inaugural Chief Executive of Homes NSW, the new Department of Communities and Justice division to drive positive change in the housing and homelessness sectors. Ms Pinkstone has almost two decades of experience in the housing sector, most recently as the Chief Executive Office of Community Housing Provider Bridge Housing. She will lead Homes NSW to deliver better outcomes for social and affordable housing tenants and applicants, boost affordable and social housing supply, and help reduce the rate of homelessness across NSW. The NSW Government is delivering on an election commitment to establish Homes NSW. The agency will help rebuild and restructure the social and affordable housing system, to create a seamless approach with a focus on people front and centre. Homes NSW consolidates the housing and homelessness functions of the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), the Land and Housing Corporation (LAHC) and the Aboriginal Housing Office (AHO), streamlining services by bringing them under one roof. Prior to joining Bridge Housing, Ms Pinkstone held senior policy, strategy and program roles in NSW Government.

Alistair Sisson is a Macquarie University Research Fellow in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences. Alistair is interested in the dynamics of housing and economic policy, urban planning and inequality. His doctoral research examined the politics of public housing policy in Australia with a focus on estate redevelopment and the Waterloo estate in particular. His subsequent research has spanned affordability and security in the private rental sector, the politics and economics of urban densification, and emerging trends in urban governance. His current project is titled ‘The politics of housing data’ – a critical analysis of the ways that contemporary housing problems are quantified and how data is used to frame the housing crisis. 

Greens Mayoral Candidate and Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore joined the City of Sydney Council in 2021 and was elected Deputy Mayor in September 2022-23. She is a founding member and Chair of the City of Sydney’s new Housing for All Working Group and Deputy Chair of the City’s Housing for All Committee.

Norrie Maywelby has lived in the Waterloo Public Housing Estate since 2018. They have been a tenant representative for their local area for the last five years, although they haven’t yet managed to address tenants’ complaints about issues such as rats and rubbish. They enjoy living here, appreciating the trees, space, and birds. They believe the medium density is just right and would prefer to stay settled in their retirement. However, they feel that too much profit is driving redevelopment, with buildings going up, up, and away.

Karyn Brown has been a tenant on the Waterloo Public Housing estate, home to about 3000 people, for 33 years. Since 2015, Karyn has been fighting to save these homes from demolition. With Waterloo Public Housing Action Group and Action for Public Housing, Karyn promotes alternatives to the government's plan for the privatisation of public housing and campaigns for more public housing, owned and run by the government. As well as losing her home, Karyn is concerned about the environmental harm of the demolish-and-replace approach to buildings, the folly of demolishing hundreds of homes in a housing crisis and the livability of for-profit development. Karyn pays 25% of her income on rent.

Dr Greta Werner is a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Her research examines the social and economic processes that inform urban development including transport and residential infrastructure. Her PhD research project compares the discursive and political fields in which social housing is constructed in Sydney, Australia and Vienna, Austria. In alignment with her research interests, she has both a theoretical and practical interest in both academic and civic governance. In 2024 she was elected Co-President of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee 43 – Housing and Built Environment. She has been a community organizer for many years and has led local campaigns for parks and urban infrastructure and in December 2021 was elected to Bayside Council, a local government in Sydney’s inner south. She was elected to the Australian Local Government Women’s Association Executive Committee in 2023.

Festival of Public Urbanism 2024

Great cities are defined by the quality of their public realm. From parks to civic architecture, well designed public infrastructure supports and enables the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of urban life. But are these public assets, along with public processes of urban governance and planning, under attack? Over the past fifty years key legacies of the modern urban project – such as publicly funded housing and urban infrastructure; or comprehensive planning for new development – have been eroded by waves of political and economic reform. Faith in market based ‘solutions’ has reduced public planning processes to ‘red tape’ and replaced public investment in rental housing with subsidies for private investors and households. At the same time, digital transformation under ‘platformisation’ has seen private corporations able to evade domestic regulations, disrupting every facet of urban life and governance.

The Festival of Public Urbanism will debate these topics and more. Join us to engage with academics, activists, politicians, industry leaders through our program of panel discussions, walking tours, and podcasts across Sydney and Australia.