by Davey Heller 17th July 2023

The last resident yet to be evicted from the Barak Beacon Public housing estate in Port Melbourne, an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Margaret Kelly, is bravely standing firm as the State Labor Government in Victoria demolishes the estate around her. The Barak Beacon estate had been home to public housing tenants for decades but now as beachside land value has skyrocketed, the government is handing the land over to private developers. The campaign is at a crucial stage and needs all the support it can get in the next few weeks.

The residents of Barak Beacon were all informed in December 2022 that they were to be kicked out of there homes. They have all now been “relocated” into other accommodation which for many of them is much smaller than there homes at Barak Beacon and in areas away from their support networks.

Margaret Kelly who has lives in one of the houses with her elderly dog has bravely refused to leave the property in order to fight the eviction. You can hear Margaret discuss the campaign and the destruction of the estate in an interview Box 4 here.  On the campaign’s fundraising page she is quoted:

“I’ve lived in the Barak Beacon housing community for 25 years, and now the government is trying to force me out. 

This little area is my world. It’s where I raised my son and was the first time I felt like I’d found a place I could stay forever. My neigbhours have lived here for generations. This isn’t like anywhere else I’ve lived in Melbourne.

I won’t leave without a fight.”

As part of the Governments “Big Housing Build” plan, the site, like many other public housing sites is being leased to private developers for 40 years. The developers only have to build a small percentage of “social housing” on the site with the rest of the site being exploited for maximum profit.

In the case of Barak Beacon, which did have have 89 houses on it, the government has committed to only a 10 percent increase in social housing. This means of the 300-350 new homes built on the site, less than 100 will be set aside for those on the public housing tenant list, including the former residents of the estate. So while over 200 new luxury private beach side residents can be flogged off by the developers, only a handful of additional public houses will be built. There is no guarantee about the quality or size of the new public houses either.

This fits the larger pattern of the “Big Housing Build” project which has seen just 74 new addition public houses built in the last four years despite a multi-billion dollar price tag. It is clear the entire project is nothing more than a boondoggle for developers at the expense of the ever growing number of people in need of public housing.

In addition the public housing built will be under the rubric of “social housing” whereby “non-profit” private operators run the houses not the government directly. It is another way of bringing the private sector into the running of public housing.

As the demolitions have began and the efforts to evict Margaret Kelly have escalated, a direct action component of the campaign has kicked into gear. A Monday to Friday Vigil is being held outside the estate between 3.00PM and 5.00PM. There was also some effort to occupy the disused houses on the estate but this has been meant with threats of arrest and the destruction of protestors property by Housing Victoria and its private security. Fences now ring the site. The ALP Government is determined to try and extinguish this spark of resistance before it becomes an even larger lightning rod of resistance to its attacks on public housing.

The Vigil is being supported by the Community Union and Defence League (CUDL) who are providing logistical support for the daily vigil. The Renters and Housing Union (RAHU) also offering their support to the ongoing protests. The trade unions bureaucracies are conspicuously absent from the campaign out of fear of crossing their political patrons in the ALP. The Victorian Greens have taken a stand in support of the campaign.

Rallies are being organised on and off the site. To stay informed about the campaign join the Facebook page and follow the campaign on Twitter.

Donations can be made to the campaign at the Chuffed Donation page

Campaigns such as the Save Barak Beacon must be supported and built amongst the working class. This is the only way to push back against the capitalist onslaught pushed by both major parties. Ultimately the housing crisis can only by no longer treating housing as a commodity to be bought and sold but as a fundamental human right. Such a solution cannot be separated from the fight to overturn capitalist property relations and establish a socialist society.