Dear friends
On World Homeless Day, our Councillors voted behind closed doors to evict us. We heard the news from a council media release.
Hobsons Bay City Council had said they would respond to our petition at last week’s council meeting. But there was no vote on whether to “work in partnership with the residents of Techno Park to find a permanent solution that allows us to remain in our homes,” as the petition calls for— only a vote on how to get us out.
In the words of resident John O’Hagan, “the Council's latest media stunt is yet another kick in the guts for me and my family. The so-called ‘Techno Park Housing Solutions Group’ the Council claims to be setting up is just a re-branding of their existing plan to force people from their homes. They are completely ignoring residents' pleas to work with them to find solutions that allow people to stay in their homes, and rigging the game by ruling out any such solutions in advance. As usual, Council plays fast and loose with the truth, twisting facts to justify their plan.”
The day before the meeting we had sent a letter to all Councillors, highlighting the incomplete, false, and misleading information in Council officers’ response to the petition, and urging them to vote against the recommendations.
About 40 minutes into the council meeting, the Mayor announced that to protect Council’s ‘legal privilege’ they would not be answering any public questions about Techno Park, and that the discussion and vote on Council’s response to the petition would be happening in private. So nobody knows which councillors voted to evict us, and the public is barred from asking questions from now on.
As John says: “They hide behind phoney legal reasons, pretending they can't answer questions or debate Techno Park publicly, but are somehow able to issue a press release dressing up the mass eviction as some kind of public service.”
We need your help to push back against this eviction. Please share our petition, connect with us on Facebook and Instagram, and help spread the word.
Thank you for the support you have already provided by signing our petition and for your solidarity. It means the world to us.
[Pictured: some of the Techno Park community who had attended the council meeting to hear the discussion and vote]