Radical simply means grasping things at the root. ― Angela Davis
People who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. – Rosa Luxemburg in Reform or Revolution
On the eve of his resignation from Brisbane City Councillor for the Gabba ward it is easy to forget that Jonathan Sriranganathan was elected as a Green. Predictably, the corporate media caricatured him as a radical. Sriranganathan stood as the Greens candidate for South Brisbane at the 2015 Queensland state election, where he received 21.8% of the primary vote. Sriranganathan stood as a candidate for The Gabba Ward at the 2016 Brisbane City Council election, held on 19 March, where he received 31.7% of the primary vote and won the ward on preferences. Sriranganathan stood as a candidate for The Gabba Ward at the 2020 Brisbane City Council election, held on 28 March, where he received 45.6% of the primary vote and won the ward for a second time. So, in 7 years, Sriranganathan had more than doubled his support base. Why? partly because he captured the youth vote who had moved into the area as the inner city expanded and universities obtained more enrollments. West End has long been a dormitory suburb for students. But more broadly he represented multiculturalism that had existed in the suburb for many years. And he is a strong supporter of First Nations people.
The Haters
There are a lot of haters out there, some of them with some pretty ordinary criticisms of Jonathan Sriranganathan. Starting at the bottom: “He only showers once a week.” “He doesn’t listen to 85% of constituents he doesn’t agree with … “council had to force him to put out the right questionnaire.” “He says he got the free bus for West End but it doesn’t go past our building“. “He shouldn’t be encouraging backyard concerts!” “ring the police and have them banned”. Not to mention the coppers … They hate Jonno.
It almost makes you give up on Australian society. What hope is there if this is the level of critique of a mildly radical program for change?
The Poor
Jonathan Sriranganathan may not have links with the organised working class, but he is definitely concerned about the poor and homeless. Take this discussion in Brisbane City Council about the Brisbane Racing Club and poker machines.
SPEAKERS in Council Chambers.
Cr McLachlan – Chair of Council, Cr Adams (Deputy Mayor), Cr Sriranganathan for Gabba Ward
Cr Sriragnathan for Gabba Ward
… arrangement out at Acacia Ridge, but what I do know is that the Brisbane Racing Club is an organization (that) is a sadistic parasite. That’s a
Cr Adams
… point of order point of order. absolutely disgraceful. And I ask that that is withdrawn, immediately
Cr McLachlan – Chair of Council
Councillor Sri. You can’t use language like that to describe an organization. Please can you can you withdraw that?
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
I’m sorry Chair. Am I not allowed to express my view in this chamber? I do think that the racing industry is sadistic and parasitic that it profits of the suffering and abuse of animals
Cr McLachlan – Chair of Council
… councillor can you (stick) to the item please.
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
I was cut off, but I was also going to add that Brisbane Racing Club are blood sucking vultures
Cr McLachlan – Chair of Council
Councillor Sri, can you sit down please!
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
the business model used by an organization like Brisbane Racing Club is inherently parasitic
Cr Adams
… poker machines are not part of this report.
Cr McLachlan – Chair of Council
Yes.
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
Yeah. They’re definitely there. And that’s why I’m so angry because this council administration should not be doing deals with companies like this that rip off poor people that screw over working communities sucking money out of their pockets, so they can buy fancy chairs for the race course in Ascot.
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
That’s really what’s happening here is that wealth is being extracted from a low income marginalized community to prop up a family and business model of us of an industry that doesn’t even deserve the dignity of being described as a sport. This is contemptible what Brisbane Racing Club is doing it -…. they’re getting favorable treatment off Council, free or subsidized real estate off council …. for for a business that shouldn’t even be considered a non-profit. I’ve looked at the details of what this this report is actually asking for. They want to vary their contract. So they have to put less money from the poker machines back towards Council.
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
They say “Aw, the state government’s taxes on poker machines are too high so we can’t afford to give money”. Nonsense. They’re making millions off poker machines … this business of crying poor: ” Aw, we’re the Brisbane Racing club … we can’t afford the the charges.”
Cr Sri for Gabba Ward
I mean, come on. No one’s buying that. This club has so much money.
Here is his parting interview before retirement with 4ZZZ’s Alexis Pink.
Interview with Jonathan Sriranganathan on the eve of the 28 March 2020 council elections.
[Apologies for the poor transcription]
SPEAKERS
Jonathan Sriranganathan, 4PR – Voice of the People
4PR – Voice of the People
Can you please introduce yourself?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
My name is Jonathan Sri on the Green City Council representing the Gabba ward.
4PR – Voice of the People
When did you move to the Gabba ward and why
Jonathan Sriranganathan
I first moved into the Gabba ward around 2010. I had previously been living around Indooroopilly. So I grew up in West Chermside on the north side and then basically bounced around in inner city suburbs in the inner west around Indooroopilly, then Highgate Hill West End, I was drawn into West End and Highgate Hill to be close to the live music scene. I was working a bit as a musician and was really attracted to the kind of counter-cultural movements that were there on the ground in West End. So yeah, in a nutshell, that’s why I wanted to be closer to the music and art and rent was cheap.
4PR – Voice of the People
So you were in Indooroopilly when you were a student and then you moved to West End to be part of cultural life.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Yeah, and it’s funny because growing up in West Chermside, like I used to go to jams and gigs in the valley, and not as much in in West End. And it was only once I started getting more involved in reggae music, I discovered all these great reggae bands based out of West End and started to go to gigs at places like the Forest and Tongue ‘n Groove and those sorts of venues.
4PR – Voice of the People
But your training is as a lawyer. Yeah, so
Jonathan Sriranganathan
I studied Law at University of Queensland. I assist studied arts, my arts majors were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and Journalism and Mass Communication. So have honours in law, a Bachelor of Arts and did a graduate certificate in creative writing. I never actually practiced as a lawyer. I worked as a clerk during law school for a few years and decided I didn’t want to work in a law firm. So when I finished I ended up working in essentially community work so did a little bit of time up in Arnhem Land in remote Aboriginal communities, working kind of in youth work roles and dispute resolution roles, and then also did a bit of event organizing and community work back here in Brisbane.
4PR – Voice of the People
Can you describe the geography of the Gabba ward?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
So the Gabba Ward currently includes the suburbs of West End Highgate Hill, Dutton Park kangaroo point South Brisbane, East Brisbane and willing GABA, the boundaries are being redrawn. Buranda is part of the suburb of wheeling GABA. Yeah, so the boundaries are currently being redrawn for the 28th of March election. So after the 2020 council election, the boundaries of the GABA Ward will shift. And so the suburb of East Brisbane and the Buranda locality of will and GABA will shift into the neighboring Coorparoo ward. So the Gabba ward geographically is shrinking a bit. So all that will be left is kind of about a third of Wooloongabba, Kangaroo Point, Dutton Park, Highgate Hill and West End and South Brisbane. So we’re losing the eastern half of the Gabba ward to Coorparoo ward. And traditionally the western side of the Gabba ward has been a lot stronger for the Greens.
4PR – Voice of the People
You have represented residents and Ratepayers of the gab awards since 2016. The Gabba is one of 27 wards or 26 wards in Brisbane City Council which makes this a distinctive situation other people who live in it different from residency and other wards.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
No, I don’t think the residents of the Gabba Ward are fundamentally different from residents of other wards. I think there are a few factors that make the GABA Ward a little bit different. And a lot of that comes back to history and geography and inner city. Yeah, so certainly the fact that it’s an inner city neighborhood and has a higher proportion of artists and musicians and activists and perhaps more importantly, a high proportion of renters and short term residents, I think is quite significant. But particularly suburbs like West End and Wooloongabba also just have a really long, deep history of countercultural movements and subcultures and activism. And it’s those decades of community organizing and activism that have essentially laid the foundation for a Greens Councillor with a fairly radical policy platform to be able to get elected. It’s not like I came out of nowhere. There’s this long history of activism and community organizing that made it possible to win in 2016.
4PR – Voice of the People
previous Labor councilors Tim Quinn, and to a lesser degree, Helen, Abraham’s, they kept the developers out of West End, they kept them out of Buranda, the Gabba and South Brisbane. Now there is an explosion in high rise apartments, changing the character and demographics of these suburbs, possibly forever. What brought this about what’s happened?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
So the construction boom really started ramping up several years before I got elected, kind of around 2011, 2012; post the 2011 floods, Campbell Newman rezoned several large chunks of the Gabba ward for high density development, and that sort of unleashed the floodgates of a new wave of high density construction. But there were other commercial pressures at the same time whereas the mining boom, tapered down and other industries around Australia were not as profitable, more and more Capital Investment flooded into the inner city property market. So the rapid construction boom we saw on Brisbane inner south side was a symptom of broader national and global trends where rich investors were looking for safe places to park their money. And so that has dramatically changed the built form of the Gabba ward in terms of there’s a lot more high rises, but it also caused mass displacement of lower income, longer term residents, as well as a major influx of newer residents who demographically, in some ways don’t necessarily seem that different from residents who were here previously. It’s still a very young electorate, still very high proportion of renters, but in fact, the proportion of renters seems to have grown in the last few years. So latest estimates that the Gabba ward is somewhere around 60 to 65% of residents are renters, rather than owner occupiers.
4PR – Voice of the People
One previous seismic change in the Gabba was the building of the South East freeway, which carved a barrier right through the center of thriving migrant communities, Russians, Italians, Greeks, just to name a few, another was Expo 88. This was when the developers got their foothold at the same time gentrification was going on. And these are all challenges to a previously multicultural community that was tolerant and an affordable place to live. Can the inner city become affordable once again, and how?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
I think there’s a risk of romanticizing the past a little too much, because it’s not like 30 or 40 years ago, West End was more tolerant and less racist. In fact, I would argue that racism has always been a problem in Brisbane, and particularly where new migrant communities or long term Aboriginal residents come into conflict with White Australian community groups. And I think there’s a danger of looking at a fixed, I think there’s a it would be mistake to take a fixed-in-time view of, of history and say, oh, there was this beautiful utopia of multicultural inner city cosmopolitan bohemian-ism that was suddenly destroyed by Expo 88 and the freeway projects and successive waves of gentrification, in fact, really the the invasion and the first wave of gentrification started way back in the 1830s, when white invaders first came to this side of the river. And really, when we talk about the changes that have happened in the Gabba ward, the biggest changes are the conversion of jungle and dense forest into housing and commercial precincts. So I think I’d, I’d sort of questioned the implication, the implication of the question a little bit, I think, really, the EXPO 88, and the freeway projects and the road widening projects loom large in our cultural memory, because they’ve happened in the last few decades. But actually, there were previous waves of development and gentrification that also forced out community. And that’s kind of been a function of the growth of the city and the inner Southside in particular, for well over a century now. So, Expo 88. And the road widening projects definitely had a huge impact on a carving up community, but it was, they were one chapter in an ongoing story of displacement and commodification of property.
4PR – Voice of the People
As a student, I used to pay $100 A week rent in a four bedroom house, share-house, of course, we socialized our poverty. Nowadays, when I just picked up the papers the other day, rents more than $600. The houses that we lived in were fairly modest. We could never afford to buy them, but we could certainly rent there. And now many of the homes and the apartments are being advertised for over a million dollars. So how do you get to an affordability for the poor people that have been pushed out.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
So the construction boom has definitely led to increased property values and rising rents. And the really the only way to counteract that is with public sector investment. The government needs to be building and delivering more public housing and community housing and also introducing stronger renters rights and rules that limit unreasonable rent increases. So part of what makes suburbs like West End and Wooloongabba special is that for a long time, people on lower incomes could still afford to live in these walkable neighborhoods in these inner city communities that were close to services and cultural hubs. And so to preserve that culture and that identity of a suburb like West End, we also have to preserve a significant proportion of affordable housing stock. And unfortunately, the property industry narrative that increasing the supply of housing is going to improve affordability hasn’t actually held true. We’ve seen that even though the construction of new dwellings has outstripped the rate of population growth, property values and rents have still risen.
4PR – Voice of the People
You challenge the concept of West Village in Mollison Street in West End, why?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
West Village is mega project that dramatically gentrified Boundary Street and closed off opportunities to redevelop an old industrial site more sustainably and more equitably. So, West Village really is symptomatic of a broader problem, but also on a specific level, just represented a huge lost opportunity because it was a 2.6 hectare site, which had had multiple lives previously as industrial factory users and an ice cream factory, and then as a hub for artists and musicians and then more recently as markets and a major live music venue. So that site could have been redeveloped with a significant component of public housing with large public green spaces and community facilities like community center and a library etc. Instead, the state government called in the project and approved it for high rises of up to 22 storeys, which doesn’t … the project doesn’t include enough public green space is very light on in community facilities and crucially, doesn’t include any public housing or rent controlled housing. And that’s the fundamental concern with these kinds of projects. It’s not that density is necessarily a bad thing. And in some cases, that the landscaping looks quite nice, and it’s not necessarily terribly designed. But when you look at the economics of it, these projects have a tendency to force out lower income people, and to make it harder for those diverse communities to continue living in the inner city. And it’s been interested in since the project was approved to watch how West Village and even recent residents of West Village, some of them have been trying to apply pressure to change the broader character of Boundary Street. So I don’t want to generalize about the residents who’ve moved in there. But we have had one or two complaints from residents of the very expensive new apartments about the presence of Aboriginal people on Boundary Street. And we’ve had West Village developers themselves applying indirect pressure through the West End Traders Association, to “clean up” the street. And so the presence of these gentrifying mega projects does have a broader impact on the culture of the street and the neighborhood they are located within. And I think, in general, that’s not particularly good for the broader community.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
According to the stats on the West Village website, and West End, that’s just West End, has a population of 10,000 people, and only 1/3 of those people own a dwelling in which they live. So that’s over 6000 people are renters, and they’re at the mercy of the money men, real estate agents, the banks, how can community be established when the basis of the dwelling is to be exploited?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Yeah, the treatment of housing as a commodity directly undermines the potential to form and preserve community connections. And I think resisting that in an era of commodified and speculative investment in housing is really really difficult. The low hanging fruit and I think the highest priority is to push for stronger renters rights. Because stronger renters rights will protect or help protect vulnerable renters from being exploited and evicted unreasonably, it won’t fix the problem, but it will definitely put the brakes on some of the most egregious abuses of power. And stronger renters rights will also arguably put a little bit of downward pressure on property values, which in turn will cool down the housing market and help rein in some of this ramp and profit driven development. Above and beyond stronger renters rights, though, we also really need to start pushing for more public housing construction in the inner city, including an inclusionary zoning where developers are required to actually hand over public housing as part of their new developments. And that’s something the Greens have been pushing quite strongly. But now that the construction boom is sort of reaching the next stage of its cycle, we have a lot of existing housing stock that sitting empty in the inner city. And so a new demand is emerging, which is the demand for a vacancy Levy, so that investors who buy up this stock and then just leave it sitting empty, are penalized financially and are incentivized to actually get tenants in. And we’re seeing that in other cities around the world as well, where the first stage of the construction boom is this massive increase in the supply of overpriced apartments that no one could afford to live in. And then the second stage is a contest of what happens to those apartments now that they’ve been built, so I think a vacancy levy will become increasingly important in that context.
4PR – Voice of the People
Since being elected, you have experimented with different ways of engaging with people in the Gabba ward, can you explain what methods you have used and where they have been more successful?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
So we’ve tried to arrange of processes to empower the community and decentralize decision making. One of the most longest longest running processes has been our community voting for local park upgrades, where I have a discretionary budget for public space upgrades of several $100,000 a year. And I, instead of making up my own decisions about how that money is spent, we use a community voting process where residents make suggestions on what projects they’d like to see built and then can vote for their priorities. We’ve also had other collaborative design processes such as for a park in Wooloongabba, where we held a small community festival, and then multiple workshops and small group discussions to collectively design a concept plan for the park. And in other areas of Council decision making, we’ve used community voting to name streets to make decisions about where basketball courts and community gardens should go, and also to make decisions about how I spend my time and energy in terms of advocacy. So running large surveys that are very, very detailed, to get a really good pulse of what residents actually want, and want me to prioritize. And so my decision making is guided by the results of those community votes and surveys. Alongside that, we’ve held a lot of public forums and policy conferences that have a strong focus on participatory decision making where residents are actually actively involved in shaping policy and shaping the values that sit underneath those policies. And so, rather than saying, here’s this one process, that’s the perfect way to engage the community and empower the community, we’ve been experimenting with a range of different processes that are to some extent adapted to the specific decisions being made. And I think the most effective processes have been the ones where the residents feel and understand that they have meaningful control, where residents feel that they don’t have the final say they might give a little bit of feedback, but they’re not going to get actively involved. Whereas if you hand over decision making power to residents, new debt generally get a greater level of engagement and a better quality of decision making. As a result,
4PR – Voice of the People
The city council allocates you two full-time staff if rejigged so that there are four part-time staff. Now what you’ve just described, strikes me as being a real burden on yourself and people working here. You’ve done it for four years. How are you going to manage?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Yeah, this is one of the big tensions because doing a good job of decentralizing decision making power, and empowering the community is actually really time intensive and resource intensive. Often, it’s quicker for me to just make up my own mind about something as opposed to me and my staff running a broader consultation process. And so we’re continually having to strike that balance between wanting to do a better job of community decision making, and the fact that we only have two full time staff and myself. So part of the benefit of having multiple part time staff has been, we’ve been able to run this office less like a traditional ward office with a strong focus on service provision, and more like a community organizing hub. So the ward office loans out a lot of equipment to community projects and community campaigns. We deploy our local grants budget strategically to support activist projects that align with our values. And we’re a little bit more proactive in helping coordinate community campaigns as opposed to just responding to them. And so I think, really, we’ve taken more of a community development approach to representation as opposed to a purely representative approach.
4PR – Voice of the People
In 2011, Lord Mayor Quirk drove the Occupy movement out of Brisbane CBD. We sought refuge in the GABA Ward, initially with permission from the traditional owners in Musgrave Park. And in 2019, Lord Mayor schrinner attempted to do the same two groups protesting against government failure to act on climate change. And in January of this year, a crowd of 10,000 people assembled and marched around Brisbane CBD, are we seeing a resurgence of democratic rights in the city or behind the scenes is City Hall planning a fight back against peaceful assembly in places like King George Square, Raddacliff Place, Queen’s Park and Emma Miller place.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
So there are multiple overlapping and somewhat contradictory trends in this city at the moment. On the one hand, we seem to be seen upsurge of direct action, civil disobedience, mass protests on the streets. And I would argue that my election has had a small part to play in supporting a lot of that. On the other hand, though, we’ve also seen the increasing commodification and control of public spaces and crackdowns on protests. And a lot of that, I think sort of was ramped up in the 2014 G 20. Summit, and Campbell Newman and got stepped up again, with the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and now has become sort of normalized as part of this security culture and this rhetoric of public safety. The council administration has really, in particular, targeted ‘Extinction Rebellion’, but other groups as well in terms of limiting their rights to public assembly and peaceful protests. And I think that has that has been an escalation that sort of does start to harken back to the Joh Bjelke- Peterson years. But what’s been interesting is that the Labour state government has also followed suit in previous eras. Even if the LNP had control of Council and was starting to act a little bit undemocratically, at least the Labor Party was a little bit more assertive in resisting that. Whereas this time, both Labor and the LNP have been in a race to the bottom to outdo each other in suppressing rights to peaceful process protests and our basic civil liberties. So it’s a very difficult landscape to be operating in. But we’ve also had some significant wins such as the court case where the mayor tried to take me to court to present to prevent me running a peaceful protest march for the city at peak hour and the chief magistrate found in my favor and essentially upheld the power of the Peaceful Assembly Act of 1992, which was introduced as a result of previous waves of protests defending that right to peaceful assembly. So I think it was an important moment in that we now have a very clear recent case precedent, which says that activists are allowed to march through the city streets in peak hour on a weekday and block traffic, and that’s that’s protected and permitted under the Peaceful Assembly Act.
4PR – Voice of the People
Brisbane still does not have an Aboriginal Cultural Center. This was the dream of Uncle Sam Watson and many Aboriginal leaders before him. Berryl Wharton, Des and Debbie Sandy. The Ruska’s, all their families. In a word, Brisbane Blacks, they want an Aboriginal Cultural Center, and they want it here in this ward. Many non Aboriginal indigenous people like ourselves support that … it offers a way forward for Aboriginal artists, and the emerging Murri youth to show their work in an environment of Aboriginal control and management of the arts and culture. Former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman had a nest egg of millions of dollars – some say 11 million – to undertake this project. Do you know what has happened? I’m not asking you to spell out where the money is. But if you do know, I’d like to know. But what steps can you take to support the project?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
So generally, when a project doesn’t go ahead, the money is just really reallocated back into general revenue and then reallocated through the budget. So it’s not actually very easy to say, okay, the millions of dollars that were allocated towards the cultural center in Musgrave Park, have instead been put into this bank account or instead of been spent here. Really the millions of dollars that were allocated to the cultural center seem to have just gone back into the consolidated revenue budget and have then been reallocated. So it’s yeah, it’s difficult to say that all the money has gone to this specific place essentially the problem is that the money which was allocated is no longer allocated so we back to square one with money essentially. Yeah, it’s not like there’s any sitting somewhere waiting an identified to be spent on this project. It’s yeah, I think there’s a really strong case for both Council and the state government to be putting funding towards this project. The state government should, I think, be a big player in the funding process. But Council also needs to play a role. I think one of the challenges that has made it difficult for progressive public servants, and even perhaps progressive elected representatives to push the project is a lack of certainty and clarity around who can speak on behalf of Brisbane Blacks, and what what decision making body or what community entity would run a collaborative design process to lead the project. Because my view and I think the view of a lot of people is that the project needs to be led by the Aboriginal community, Aboriginal communities should be the ones deciding what kind of building it is how it’s designed exactly where it’s located exactly what its functions are. But it’s not yet entirely clear what body community can speak through. And it’s a function of the difficulty of anti hierarchical and decentralized community networks, trying to engage with a hierarchical state bureaucracy that isn’t well adapted to understand the intricate interpersonal relationships of Aboriginal community. So I think really, a next step, and something that I’m very keen to support is to see some money put towards, essentially community building and consensus building where the state and council support local Aboriginal community groups to come together, actually pay mediators, pay facilitators, pay people for their time, so they can have those big meetings and achieve consensus on what they want. I think there’s certainly a lot more people have in common, and I think even within the public service, there’s a lot of support for the idea of an Aboriginal Cultural Center. It’s that the state is structurally incapable of working collaboratively with Aboriginal people in a way that’s not patronizing or paternalistic.
4PR – Voice of the People
One hour west of here, a group of West End urban planners, under the name of ‘Plan C’, is mediating a deal between developers and native title holders to develop a housing estate at Deebing Creek. This, of course, is sacred land with underground springs, Aboriginal remains a history of continuous connection with the land. Last year, you went too Deebing Creek, to show solidarity with the original owners of the land. You were pilloried in the press and fined by council for misrepresenting yourself as a concerned resident of that district. You apologized. And for a call that you made to MP Jennifer Howard, if you’re not supposed to challenge developers outside your own ward? How is it that local urban planners residing here in West End get to represent developers who wish to steal the land from traditional owners? Is that fair?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
No. I think that’s a bit of a Dorothy Dix – er . But the broader context here is that a couple of years ago, Aboriginal community members, mostly from the Nala and Brisbanes, out of Southwest suburbs came to me and said, Look, we have a problem. These developers want to develop deeping Creek and that’s an important site to us, what should we do? What can you help us with. And at the time, I didn’t know very much about the history of Deebing Creek. But I went out to Ipswich and I met with them and understood the issues, and realized that because the project had already achieved so many of the necessary approvals, unless there was some pretty strong action, pretty soon, the project would just go ahead and the bulldozers were pretty much ready to roll in. So I actually recommended to the Aboriginal community leaders out there that an occupation was their best chance of buying time, and perhaps achieving a win long term. And so essentially supported them to set up an initial camp provided personal donations and funding in terms of portaloos and equipment to establish a base camp, and then started encouraging other activists from Brisbane and around Australia to head out there and camp out and support the project. And by the project, I mean, the protests, and the I think protest camp now has been there for over a year. And in some respects, I think that’s a success in and of itself, that people have held country for so long, even when the developers are ready to go. And it’s quite obvious now that the state government is very sensitive about this project. And there are probably all sorts of conversations going on behind closed doors about where to from here, but I’m very, very clear that the development as proposed should not go ahead and that the land should be restored to the Aboriginal community to use as they wish. And maybe they want to develop part of it for housing in a way that works for them. But that would be a very different kind of housing project to what these developers are proposing. But what I think is important is that just because this development project is technically out of outside the boundaries of Brisbane City Council doesn’t mean it isn’t directly connected to what happens within Brisbane City. The entire south-east Queensland construction industry and property market is all one beast, regardless of where the council boundaries are. And what happens in inner city, Brisbane does have an impact on the outer suburbs of Ipswich and vice versa. And this project will create more traffic congestion, and it will create that same those same problems that are continually associated with suburban sprawl. And so think it even just from a holistic urban planning perspective, it’s important for councillors in Brisbane to understand and have a strong opinion about what happens out in Ipswich. Because at the end of the day, it’s all adults are very closely linked
4PR – Voice of the People
Prior to becoming a counselor you ran against Jackie Trad, Jackie trout is one of the major decision makers in politicizing Deebing Creek by virtue of situating a railway near there, the land, of course, has more value. And sadly, for Aboriginal people on land, it becomes more valuable. It’s that’s where they lose the land, it gets taken off them. It’s that’s this process of colonisation. It’s been made even more politicized in that A V Jennings has, in the lead up to the 28th of March, has threatened to send in their bulldozers at Grampian drive there, in the lower cap, thus, would destroy the natural springs. So take away the koala habitat, all of that. And they’re doing that because this whole thing is a politicized thing they see the game as it played out. Would you go again, in the course of this campaign, and stand with those Aboriginal people who currently locked the gates and blockaded the builders coming in?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Yeah, I would I would go if the elders called me and asked me to be there. I think what’s particularly interesting about Deebing Creek is that it has the potential to set a precedent for so many other sites around Queensland. And that’s why it’s become such a hot political issue. It isn’t just about this one site. But if we can win this one and establish a precedent where the state government can’t just sell off land that’s particularly sacred to Aboriginal people and allow it to be privately developed. And if the state government goes so far as acquiring that land back and bringing it back into public hands, that sends a signal to other developers and other commercial projects all around the state that are also trying to develop on sites that are of particular significance to Aboriginal people. So I think it’s a particularly important struggle to keep in mind and to be supporting.
4PR – Voice of the People
In a way, it’s a repeat of the struggle over Musgrave Park, which is still a stalemate.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
It’s actually much bigger than Moscow Park, because Moscow Park was essentially already public land. Whereas what we’re talking about here is a demand for the state government to take land off private developers and return it to the Aboriginal community. So the ramifications of that at a broader political level are huge,
4PR – Voice of the People
Deebing and quick was public land. Yeah, they made it freehold and they carved it up in a way. It’s very opaque. On housing, the housing market is affected by a number of different things. absentee landlords, private owners, tax concessions given to professionals with big salaries, but the state has its finger in the pie as well. The Department of Housing owns houses, that it rents out as Public and Community Housing. One of the hardest hit groups are the Aboriginal community because they’re already under the surveillance of the Department of Children’s Services, who work in with housing, often against the interests of the Aboriginal families themselves. Have you any comment on the relationships between government departments, and how they impact on lower income earners who rent in your ward?
Jonathan Sriranganathan
From what I’ve seen within my own electorate, the department does not do a particularly good job of meeting the needs or supporting vulnerable people of color and First Nations people who are dependent on government housing. Part of that is because there’s such a chronic shortage of public housing stock, that public servants and the department as a whole have become quite ruthless about evicting rather than supporting so called problem tenants and looking for any excuse to rotate people out of public housing so that they can get other people in But there’s a broader problem here with how the state relates to First Nations people. And I think it makes visible, one of the major contradictions and flaws of left wing politics, which is that a lot of lefties and socialists and social democrats etc, seem to think that it’s enough that we have a big role for the nation state that taxes the wealthy and provides all these public goods like public housing. But actually, when you look at how, even in Public Housing First Nations people are treated, it’s not a pretty picture sometimes, and and really, it shows that a non Indigenous government is very poorly adapted to truly empower First Nations people and to respect their autonomy and sovereignty. And I think, it’s probably one of the most compelling cases for, I guess, what you call anarchism or an anti hierarchical politics that imagines the abolition of the nation state or rendering the nation state irrelevant. And I think we like in any other context, I would be continually arguing for more public housing. But when it comes to Aboriginal Housing, I would actually be arguing for Aboriginal community housing that’s controlled by Aboriginal organizations as opposed to directly controlled by the government. Because I just don’t feel that these large bureaucratic non Indigenous institutions are well adapted to meet the needs of the people are trying to serve.
4PR – Voice of the People
Thanks very much for giving this time, is there anything you’d like to add? And just
Jonathan Sriranganathan
that I think it’s really important that progressive people, open minded people, activist radicals, don’t underestimate the broader political significance of the coming council election. This is the first time in a long time that the council election has fallen in the same year as a state election, and the results of the election. But also, the stories we tell about how to explain the results of these election, this election becomes very, very important in setting the agenda of the state election. So for example, as a councillor who’s been pretty radical and outspoken and has actively supported civil disobedience. If my vote rises, that sends a very strong signal about the struggles I’ve been supporting to the political establishment at the statewide level. Whereas on the other hand, if the Greens do pretty poorly in this council election, that might well be interpreted as a vote against radical politics and a de-legitimization of the kind of platform I’ve pursued. So I think the stakes are actually quite high. And it’ll be interesting to see what happens on 28th of March.
4PR – Voice of the People
I think we should feel a lot of sympathy for the voters of Bundamba. How to vote cards that they’re going to get there: mayoral candidates preferential voting system, there are two Council divisions being contested. And of course, a state government seat on the resignation of Joanne Miller with a with a compulsory preferential their minds are going to be put to the test. Yeah. Democracy and action. Full on.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
Thanks for chat Ian.
4PR – Voice of the People
Thank you. So let’s go out with one of Jonathan true Ranganathan songs. This one’s called the Goanna by Rivermouth.
Jonathan Sriranganathan
The Goanna by Rivermouth
Underneath our city
hidden deep within the labyrinth of tunnels that mark the new paths
of old waterways
there lives a goanna
The biggest goanna
Seven metres long from tongue to tail
a throwback to the ancient, gargantuan lizards that stalked dreamtime Sahul and walked war upon the crocodiles
No-one can say for certain
if she’s descended from a last, secret line of those monstrous reptiles
or if she’s a once-in-a-millennia aberration who outgrew her brethren thanks to a healthy diet of feral cats and slow-moving swagmen
The goanna has no name.
Although she exists well beyond the cognisance of the average citizen
she’s as much a part of the city as the multitudes who crowd office blocks and jam the streets
her age is indeterminable
Throughout the previous century, workers in the stormwater drains had heard – or rather, felt – rumours of a massive reptilian presence haunting the cavernous passages beneath city hall. And she was still there at the turn of the age, when excavation work for the underground busway extension unearthed a lizard burrow the length of a train carriage.
So-called experts declared that she was merely a large water dragon, her size exaggerated by the darkness and overactive imaginations, and the media paid her little attention. But those of us who were truly tapped in to the pulse of the city knew in our hearts that there was something more wonderful creeping around down there in the concrete blackness.
Some say komodo, others crocodile, but I doubt a saltie could have survived the periodic droughts, when the tunnels under the city were bone-dry for months and years, empty and silent but for the gunshot echoes of cars speeding over manhole covers.
The goanna is almost blind, and navigates her subterranean kingdom by smelling the air with her tongue. It’s this sense of taste-smell that gives her an edge over any who wish her harm; some even say that she can detect malice itself.
We heard tales of her as children –half-scoffing, half-trembling at the threat of encountering the legendary monitor if we pursued an errant tennis ball too far down a stormwater drain.
It’s claimed that she can predict weather better than the meteorologists, and that whenever the goanna enters the northern tunnels leading up to the hillier suburbs, heavy rains aren’t far away.