Garema Place protest
By Val Plumwood
CANBERRA — Garema Place has become a major gathering place for poor and homeless children and teenagers. Those who gather there spend most of their waking life in the square or on the street.
Many of these street people have no income, not even the dole. The luckier ones get Austudy or the youth dole, which is a mere 40% of the adult dole. The street people live from day to day on what they can earn by busking or begging. Usually they find it necessary to visit the nearby free food distribution centre at night.
Many use their growing skills as street musicians to make themselves and their situation clearly audible as well as visible. One group, for example, is organised into a busking band, Trash, which has as many as 20 people playing, dancing, singing lively political songs and juggling and clowning.
The songs, with often trenchant and bitter words, speak of harsh experiences and a powerful political consciousness which addresses their own situation and that of others similarly marginalised.
Canberra's bitter winter hits street people particularly hard. The lucky ones have places, such as squats, mats on cold floors or temporary shelter, to go to for the night. The free food place is warm for a while, but closes around 7.30 p.m.
There is nowhere warm to go afterwards. The Civic Youth Centre around the corner is closed, unless you have the money or status to hire the hall. The centre's management committee decided last year to run the centre on a "user pays" basis.
The restriction of access to the youth centre is seen by some as part of a strategy designed to make it easy for future high rise offices to take over the remaining community spaces in the centre of Canberra.
The street people have organised a live-in for the weekend of June 19-21 in Garema Place. The idea is to bring sleeping bags and stay overnight at the chess pit in Garema Place.
Free soup, chairs and entertainment are being organised, and a rally will be held on June 20 at midnight.