cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/27082672
From the Youtube video description:
From the early 1970’s, inner city residents had been suffering from excessive through traffic. In the decade up to 1984, 41 pedestrians were injured or killed in Erskineville.
After traffic studies and consultation, a number of Erskineville streets were closed in 1984.
Then suddenly on Christmas Eve 1985, road barriers in 11 streets in Erskineville, Alexandria, Newtown and Redfern were ordered to be removed by the NSW Government. Within a few hours residents set up their own blockades and started planning further action. A “six day war” began where police and council workers repeatedly removed the barriers and residents re-erected them.
Today, streets such as Union, Rochford, Angel and others in surrounding suburbs are quieter and safer thanks to the campaigners efforts.
On the 40th anniversary, we look back on the history of those events and thank those who took part. This video was shown at a special event at Erskineville Town Hall held to mark the anniversary.
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Good on 'em.
There’s a point where enough of the people don’t want a law put upon them, and if enough are mobilised, a government can’t fight that. Luckily in this case they were outraged by a bad law, and not simply being NIMBY or something. Even the mainstream media channels don’t seem to be giving any convincing reason why the streets were reopened.
I guess the tv news media was more chill in some respects back then. I mean do they still do reports that long? I noticed a shift over a couple of decades ago from longer informative reports to much shorter less useful reports.
In regard to nimbyism, It should be noted that this was a different era. Telecom, Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, state utilities and more were still in public hands. Workers were more active in unions and local democracy through their councils. The effects of the prices and incomes accords had probably not fully taken affect. Workers barely have the right to strike these days thanks to the Labor party.
I think the most damning part is where someone talks about taking the power to make decisions like the one residents voted on back then out of councils hands. The nasty anti-worker, anti-resident, anti-democratic sentiment has been around for some time and has done a lot of damage.
