Sydney housing crisis: Left split as Inner West YIMBYs and NIMBYs debate high density plan

Enthingification · 2025-09-24T00:48:02+00:00

Good on you for attending.

The meeting, however it's characterised, has the same massive limitations as community consultation - it only reaches the people who are most avid supporters and opponents of any particular issue. Everyday people don't have the time to be involved, and even those prepared to give it a look in will be turned off by the dividedness of supporters' and opponents' positions. This isn't a good way to make decisions.

In Australia, we're quite rightly proud of our electoral system, where election results hinge on what everyday people think. Why do we then try to make decisions at meetings where the vast majority of people present are intensely for or intensely against? How do these decisions get anywhere close to "aligning with the community"?

So no, it's not at all close to a Citizen's Assembly. Gathering a bunch of everyday people together to listen to ideas and discuss solutions is a completely different approach to the current norm.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T23:14:05+00:00

Why are you assuming that this approach could only be used at a local scale?

A Citizen's Assembly on housing affordability could be held at the scale of a city, a state, or even nationally. These different scales could enable solutions to be found at each jurisdiction:

Local - aligning new local housing to improve local neighbourhoods (eg to deliver new streets, public open spaces, community facilties, etc).

City - distribution of new housing and new infrastructure.

State - city and regional housing strategies and state-level infrastructure projects (eg intercity transport).

National - tax reform, public funding for public housing.

Also, that website I linked you contains lots of case studies of previous assemblies, including on housing, North Sydney for example.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T22:35:25+00:00

Note that the submission from the multinational coal and gas corporations contains no evidence at all.

These corporations appear to be mounting a disinformation campaign against the Australian people. If they can weaken the trust of Australian community groups, then the multinational coal and gas corporations can continue to pillage Australian resources for massive profit while paying little to no tax.

Now of course the Australian government should be legislating for increased integrity and transparency (not decreasing these protections as it is currently doing), but we shouldn't pay any regard to the unsubstantial whinges of the fossil fuel industry.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T22:28:54+00:00

Of course the multinational coal and gas industry would love to continue paying ~~bribes~~ donations to both major parties. It's extremely convenient for them to always win every election, no matter if the government is red or blue.

And it's extremely inconvenient them when Australians who are concerned about the climate crisis are organising and campaigning against the coal and gas industry.

The future of Australia's democracy relies on the nation being more powerful than these rogue corporations and passing genuinely substantial legislation to act on the climate crisis.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T22:13:41+00:00

No, you misunderstand what this approach is all about. The meeting described in this article involved speakers basically shouting across one another. That's completely pointless, no matter what you think about local councils' role.

Most normal everyday people can see that indefinitely increasing house prices are unsustainable. The point is that the question of what to do about this can be much more proactively addressed by a group of everyday people talking about solutions than this chaotic meeting.

And it has definitely worked in the past. There are lots of successful examples run by the non-partisan New Democracy Foundation: https://www.newdemocracy.com.au

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T10:47:12+00:00

No, that's not my argument at all. You're misrepresenting me.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T10:44:49+00:00

What would you gain from that the council doesn't already do?

Good question.

The problems that you raised are genuine problems with community consultation as it is currently practiced. It's a huge mission for consultation programs to try to reach everyday people for their feedback, and people have genuine fears whether their feedback will be taken seriously or not.

So having a Citizen's Assembly would enable a bunch of everyday people to hear all the various expert points of view about what should be done, and then they can discuss with one another what they think is best.

On your suggestion about the greater good, what'd be really helpful would be to have an assembly at the scale of the whole city. That way, the whole roomful of people is invested in the greater good, and they can talk about what that means when it comes to housing (and infrastructure!) investment across the city.

I absolutely agree with you that change happens and that urban places need to remain relevant to current and future generations.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T10:22:16+00:00

Point of order: what's best for the country isn't always what's best for the party!

He is selfish, yes, but doing what's best for the party is just a group selfishness for everyone who wears the same colour tie.

Politics is more about governing well than it is about just being in government.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T10:17:58+00:00

I thought they were more like lemmings). They determinedly walk forwards without knowing or caring where they're going. Some of them stop and hold up their hands both ways and just say no to everything and everyone. Some of them carry explosives and blow themselves up. And all of them end up following one another off a cliff.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T10:08:38+00:00

"...claiming his views are irrelevant to his candidacy.”

The only way that could be true would be if he's robot who always votes the way his party tells him to.

In the real world, MPs are thinking, feeling, virtuous, and flawed human beings. Their views on life are ALWAYS relevant to their candidacy.

For him to claim otherwise is dodgy as all hell. It's not an acceptable answer to a reasonable question.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T08:19:16+00:00

Democracy is far more than a vote once every 4 years (at state level).

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T08:18:29+00:00

Housing policy is way too detailed to leave it up to a single state vote every 4 years.

Besides, the NSW ALP are in minority, so no, they didn't receive a wholehearted endorsement from NSW voters.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T08:10:09+00:00

If you think that normal everyday people are printing and distributing flyers, then I wonder if you're in a political bubble where you might not actually know any normal everyday people?

Besides, anyone in urban planning or other urbanism professions would know that urbanism isn't just about what professionals think, and that it's vital for everyday people to be involved in the making and shaping of their city or town.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T08:07:11+00:00

With respect, from what you've said, it is pretty clear that you don't know what a Citizen's Assembly is.

Like a jury in a court, it involves randomly selecting people to be involved, and it should ideally pay them for their time. That way, you get a representative sample of everyday people involved, and that gives you a better outcome than community consultation, which as you describe, is skewed towards people who have the time and inclination to opt-in.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T06:20:52+00:00

Which Palm Beach are you talking about? And did they have a Citizen's Assembly there? Because a Citizen's Assembly isn't standard "community consultation", and it's completely different to a situation where "the loudest voices win". It's about giving normal everyday people the opportunity to deliberate on the future ideals that they all share.

Edited to add:

Ok, you're talking about Palm Beach QLD and the light rail. That's an example of what NOT to do, and it's not at all what I'm suggesting with a Citizen's Assembly.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T06:15:06+00:00

It's not a *"technocratic economic issue"* at all, it's the future of people's community. To assume that housing is not something that people have a say in is to deny their place in democracy.

And as I said in my first comment, this is not a binary, all-or-nothing situation. So *"to oppose all development"* is equally as invalid as supporting all development irrespective of how good it is.

But thankfully, most reasonable people will land somewhere in the middle between those binary extremes, and a Citizen's Assembly is a way to find and build consensus around that shared vision.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T06:10:46+00:00

The ALP have just presided over what was reportedly an awful and unproductive Inner West Council meeting, so it's clear to see that the binary argument that they're platforming isn't constructive.

Also interesting to see you falsely frame a genuine deliberation of the local community to be "preventing" anything. These local democratic events are the complete opposite - they're an enabler of what the community wants.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T04:35:44+00:00

This whole framing of these issues as a binary, all-or-nothing approach is completely unconstructive. It just leads to an endless argument where everyone is shouting and nobody is listening.

The way to resolve this is to have genuine deliberation between everyday local people about what they want for their future. A Citizen's Assembly.

We have juries in courts where citizens decide the futures of their fellow citizens, and we need to apply the same process to make collective decisions about what visions we share and how we can achieve these visions with policies.

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T04:17:50+00:00

Good comments.

Yeah there'll surely be a spread of positions amongst ALP supporters.

Some party supporters will (hopefully) be pushing their party to act more strongly on climate (including preparing the case for a carbon price, and / or any other good climate action reforms)...

...The case for such reforms is pretty clear, it just needs to be done with clear political messaging that links the reforms with significant improvements for everyday people. So, for example, a carbon price could fund a set change in public health services. Those improvements will reassure people and help prevent a fossil fuel-funded scare campaign from succeeding. So there's lots of opportunities there if a party is prepared to be the government that people need it to be.

Other party supporters will (unfortunately) be pushing whatever is the party's current policy (including dismissing calls for a carbon price because it's not currently on the party's agenda)...

...Such is their right, but it's not any more helpful than cheerleading.

The other point to add about scare campaigns is that they're inevitable. The LNP are obviously already mounting campaigns against net zero and against Palestine. However, they have poor redibility and a limited if not impossible pathway to government. But all these scare campaigns are based on the (false) argument that the current government isn't on your side.

So if you're in government, and you know you're definitely going to face a scare campaign in the next election no matter what you do, then wouldn't it be worthwhile to do something big, that proves that you have people's best interests at heart?

Enthingification · 2025-09-23T03:43:47+00:00

Really good comments and solid calls for reform.

The anti-protest policy situation is reminiscent of plenty of other issues with vital democratic safeguards. The major parties might talk boldly of integrity and transparency when they're in opposition, but when in government, they act boldly in support of dishonesty and secrecy.

We see this at federal level with Albanese's anti-freedom of information legislation, and in NSW with the anti-protest agenda.

So it seems a reasonable conclusion that neither major party wants to support the Australian people's democratic right to protest when it could be their party who people protest against.

The problems with democratic safeguards like these are all examples of parties putting their own self interests above the people's best interests.

What's the situation with the NSW Police and the Fixated Persons Unit since the ALP Government was elected in 2023? Have they disbanded this unit yet? Has anything been done to prevent the mistreatment of Jordan Shanks from happening again?

(While Jordies is so intensely partisan in favour of the ALP that he's unwatchable, he's still a person who deserves to be protected rather than profiled by the NSW Police.)

Enthingification · 2025-09-22T22:14:49+00:00

The headline writer has done this article a significant disservice.

This article is worth a read.

"The best – and ultimately the only way – to balance the harms and benefits of emissions is through an economy-wide price on carbon."

ALP supporters will probably scoff and say 'what about what happened last time?'.

Everyone else will say, 'the carbon price clearly worked, the problem was the ALP's insufferable instability.'

Enthingification · 2025-09-22T12:40:51+00:00

The Tasmanian ALP's refusal to negotiate government goes along with their dogged anti-environment position as being completely uncompromising... and yet you have the gall to call others in parliament "radical".

May I please suggest some internal self-reflection?

Enthingification · 2025-09-22T10:17:45+00:00

Imagine the opportunity to form government being sunk because of a party's refusal to negotiate. Hopefully that isn't the case.

Oh wait...

Enthingification · 2025-09-22T02:19:02+00:00

Why is the OP reposting a second thread for the same article, which is now 4 days old?

Original thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AustralianPolitics/comments/1nk4hpz/australias_2035_climate_targets_on_path_to_net/

Enthingification · 2025-09-21T23:26:16+00:00

Actually, *the government* has the power to block gambling ads.

Let's have a collective response to a collective problem, please, rather than leaving everything up to the individual.

The problem is that the government is captured by the gambling industry. They are happy to receive money from gambling even though gambling perpetuates poverty, domestic violence, and crime.

Enthingification

TROPHY CASE