Woollahra’s housing and transport plan ‘old-fashioned toxic masculinity’

2 weeks ago 8

The bitter stoush over the Minns government’s housing plan for Sydney’s eastern suburbs is intensifying, with Woollahra Council issuing anti-development pamphlets with rates notices and its deputy mayor claiming the proposal smacks of “old-fashioned toxic masculinity”.

Woollahra Liberal deputy mayor Sean Carmichael is the latest elected official from the council to slam the plan, which the state government says could deliver 10,000 homes as well as a new train station between Bondi Junction and Edgecliff.

Woollahra station was abandoned in the 1970s. The government wants to reopen it, but there is increasing opposition from the council.

“Sydney’s housing crisis won’t be solved through random and peculiar acts of toxic masculinity,” Carmichael posted on social media. “And what else is this, really, other than old-fashioned Labor toxic masculinity? I had thought Labor had moved on from that approach by now but evidently not.”

He said it was “perfectly sensible and proper to negotiate revising growth targets with councils” but there was “good reason nobody plays fast and loose with town planning principles any more”.

“It ends in tears – just like random and peculiar acts of toxic masculinity so often tend to do. And that is my concern about this random 10,000 dwelling target,” Carmichael said on X.

Carmichael also invoked the character Bill Heslop, the corrupt councillor in the Australian hit movie Muriel’s Wedding, posting a photo of an election corflute from the 1994 film in which Heslop is campaigning for local government on a platform of “you can’t stop progress”.

Bill Hunter (right) played the corrupt councillor father of Muriel (Toni Collette) in the hit film Muriel’s Wedding.

Carmichael’s comments are the latest salvo in the council’s campaign to stop the low- and mid-rise housing policy. Councillors have unanimously voted to obtain legal advice on a challenge to the plans to complete the 1970s ghost train station and rezone the surrounding land for homes.

A legal challenge in Woollahra would follow a similar move by Ku-ring-gai Council, which took the NSW government to court to fight its transport-oriented development planning reforms. Further hearings in that case are scheduled for November.

The council has included a new pamphlet outlining its opposition to the changes in all rates notices sent to ratepayers.

It says that the “one size-fits-all planning approach will not achieve good urban design outcomes for Woollahra”. “Council has raised significant concerns regarding existing housing density, local character, heritage conservation and the additional burden on infrastructure.”

In a video on the council’s website, Liberal mayor Sarah Dixson was also highly critical of the plans and said little thought had been given to how 10,000 new homes could be added to one of Sydney’s “most densely populated areas”.

“The government has confirmed that only 1000 out of 10,000 homes will be mandated as affordable housing, locking the majority of essential workers out,” Dixson said.

Woollahra, however, has very few essential workers. The latest census data shows that there are three police officers in Woollahra, three paramedics, 29 registered nurses, 60 school teachers and no firefighters.

Dixson said the council’s concerns also included a lack of strategic planning and details over the affordability of new homes in the rezoned precinct, and an absence of community consultation.

Premier Chris Minns at the site of the new rail station at Woollahra on Sunday.

Vaucluse MP Kellie Sloane has also criticised the government’s announcement that it would open the Woollahra station, after it was abandoned amid vocal opposition from locals in the 1970s.

“What’s missing at this stage is detail,” Sloane posted on her website. “The government has not released any modelling, timelines, or plans to explain how such a project would work, or how the impacts would be managed.”

Planning Minister Paul Scully on Monday accused opponents of increased density of helping create suburbs without grandchildren, although stopped short of naming Woollahra.

“Quite frankly, we run the risk of continuing to accept the kind of housing segregation [we have had] if we continue the way we’ve always done things,” Scully told The Australian Financial Review Property Summit.

“We’ve allowed a system to develop over time that has created an almost systemic and institutionalised resistance to extending housing supply.

“There are areas in Sydney that are pushing back so hard on increasing supply that they are becoming exclusive areas due to their lack of affordability, their cost to travel to them and their resistance to change.”

Scully said some voices opposed to increased density in their area were “loud and … drown out the voices of future generations”.

Federal Labor MP Ed Husic has also weighed into the debate to turn the half-built Woollahra station into a transport and housing hub, describing opposition to the proposal as perplexing.

“For someone from western Sydney who’s grown up and seen fields be transformed into row and row of mortar and rooftop tiles continually,” Husic told parliament on Monday, “we would love the idea that you would have infrastructure built at the same time as housing, because I’ve got to tell you, that hasn’t happened for quite some time.”

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