By John Hutnyk
SYDNEY — Pursuing a technological fetish that has overtaken urban planners and university administrators worldwide, three universities here are planning an "advanced technology park" (ATP) for Redfern.
Funded from the University of Technology, UNSW and the University of Sydney, as well as taking a substantial slice of money from the Better Cities budget, the "park" is to be built on railways land given to the venture by the state government.
Secret proposals for company involvement are about to manifest in bulldozing and building. Community opposition has been largely ignored by the management team and its foreign consultants, but recent documents tell a different story.
The Eveleigh Precinct Social Impact Study, which examines the likely impacts of the ATP, was prepared in June 1992 by Brian Elton and Associates. While this organisation is not a radical group, and many of its formulations and rhetorical choices in the document are evasive, a reading indicates a bleak future for Redfern if the park goes ahead.
The community consultation was not well advertised. Nevertheless, among those who did manage to attend, there was unanimous opposition to the notion of a Multi-Function Polis-like development in the midst of their community.
In late October students and local activists produced a broadsheet called the Catalyst, which outlined serious concerns such as the participation of companies involved in military production in the ATP, the failure of the proposals to address pressing needs for housing, jobs and services, and the question of the environmental impact.
For at least two years the Students Representative Council of Sydney University has been demanding an end to the secrecy surrounding the project. The University of Technology Students Association president condemned the further privatisation of education, the "total disregard of the local community" and the "power relationship which ultimately favours big business".
In the broadsheet Margaret Vincent, from Redfern Aboriginal Enterprise, explained, "The ATP suits non-Aboriginal people's egos — it has no consideration for indigenous people". The ATP is a big business land-grab masquerading under a clever
country rhetoric and a university banner.
Obvious problems
The communities that live in the suburbs adjacent to the proposed ATP site (the Eveleigh rail yards) have established strong cultural ties, and the area has a distinct inner-urban identity. This is especially true of the Aboriginal community surrounding successful ventures like the Aboriginal Housing Service and the Settlement. Also affected will be the Vietnamese and Lebanese communities, and the student, alternative groups and working-
class residents around Newtown, Erskineville, Waterloo and Darlington.
Where will these communities, who rely on access to inner city social services and conveniences, go? The further invasion of high-income professionals, and the subsequent displacement of current residents, will be a cultural disaster for the area.
Traffic congestion in busy Redfern, Newtown, Erskineville and neighbourhood is expected to increase dramatically. Some 880 vehicles per hour for the ATP, and about half as many again for the complex proposed above Redfern station (office space and shops), will add to already choked roads like King Street, Parramatta Road and Cleveland Street.
Housing in the area is largely low-income rental, Housing Commission, flats and squats. With the influx of some 9000 professionals, the local communities, low-income families, those with non-English speaking backgrounds, Aboriginal, aged and student groups will be priced out.
Technological reasons for building the park seem thin. The explosion of such developments across the world (some 300 in the last 10 years) is yet to prove justified or successful. Very few of these ventures show any financial gains for the universities involved; many of them result only in increased scholarly expertise provided to industry at reduced cost.
In a period of economic downturn, global industrial might looks to the public sector to fund its profit-driven efforts. Instead of maintaining its own research and infrastructure, industry looks to the community and the publicly funded universities for access to researchers, intellectual property and support facilities. It is absurd that any university administration would consider a venture fraught with such problems.
Research
Questions of ethics, of orientation, of use and of power all become relevant where the profit motive impinges upon the
activities of the university (which has an allegedly educational rationale).
What is most disturbing is that there has been no public discussion of the kinds of research planned for the ATP.
Where are the guidelines? Where are the guarantees against research linked to the military machine? Is there to be a research reactor, or some other hazardous research into chemicals, genetics or surveillance techniques? Where are the guidelines on environmentally appropriate research? How will the rights of students as researchers be protected from exploitation? What of the moral, legal and ethical problems that need to be solved? Why has there been no opportunity for community input into these decisions?
The absence of any mechanisms to monitor and control an establishment modelled on Los Alamos — the first technology enclave and home of the atomic bomb — must be cause for concern. Those who thought money from the Better Cities program would be spent to improve Sydney rather than destroy its communities have been disappointed.
Jobs are often trotted out as the rationale for these kinds of development. Somehow the arrival of a host of multinational research companies (who are interested in technology transfer) is supposed to revive the manufacturing sector. Given the expected clientele of the park, it is unlikely that innovations in the ATP will lead to the development of new "local" industries.
The ATP and the Redfern station complex might employ up to 8000 people. If the ATP does employ anyone, most of those will be professionals who already have jobs. The ATP is a sleight of hand to shift white-collar workers, academics and other researchers from universities, industry or other commercial ventures to a publicly funded bunker.