| I have a story to tell...our community garden became the war trophy... A community garden became the dream of a single living in public housing in Elsternwick...Elsternwick is a leafy beachside suburb 15 Km's from Melbourne, Victoria , Australia. At that time (4 years ago) Public housing tenants were really feeling the brunt of the fascist/econimc rationalist/capitalist Kennet governement (state). For the first time ever Kennett raised the public housing rents and took away security of life long tenure. Kennett spent nothing on the exsisting stock...reduced spending and was repremanded by our Commonwealth Governemnt for not using the money it had given Kennett for public housing.... Although things were tough, We have a singer/poet called Paul Kelly here who sang a song called...from little things big things grow...it is about the land rights struggle of our Aboriginal brothers and sisters....but we too were stolen, degraded, lacked status, broad based education and monetry wealth and had been left to rot...some of us feared we were becoming the women of the Victorian ghetto's in london... So...with inspiration...Vanessa started lobbying, gathering, and working towards permission to build a garden in the common areas of the public housing landscape...I suppose they thought "its just a bit of dirt and seed...what can come of it?" They eventually said yes....the garden now covers 30% of the landscape...has no fences...some self seeding happens... there are tools, resources, knowledge and friendship to be found there...and if you want to be involved in the political...(the personal being totally political) you meet in the garden...the gardners are multicultural and multi talented...its a joy to see so many styles of gardening in one place...ever one seems to be working... There were many plans that grew from the garden...the garden had always been simply a conduit for communication, breaking down barriers, inproving self worth/opnion/esteem/power. The garden recognised the beauty and talent of the peopele who had little economic status and sought to build them up. It began to lobby for a community room...somewhere to work, have a phone, get serious about self sustainability (we all know the dangers of rely on government funding dont we?. Classes were planned, new garden beds, a sensory garden, childrens groups were run, holiday programs, a community market, partnerships were developed with the wider community, land reclamation was planned and Rainbow Enterprises sought to be an economic outlet, selling handmade wares and delivering small business idea and education to tenants....all for free...all built by the free labours of women.... the guerrilla girls grew out of the Garden Committee...their work saw them to make public protest on housing issues, they dumped a broken down car outside the Port Melbourne Town Hall ...the car was painted with "emergency housing unit 13" and signs were put along the road to highlight the availablity of emergency housing outside the town hall....this was to illustrate the deplorable conditions of emergency and short term housing options for people in the inner city (once apon a time thats where the bougious wanted us!) ...In fact homeless people weere sleeping in abandoned cars where the women lived, in laundries and on the rooves. Also, FATSs, a radio program to be broadcast on Melbournes 3CR..a public radio station that stands way left....(fatss stands for FAT ANGRY TARTS SICK OF THE SYSTEM they were hillarious....and had the balls to ask them common man "what comes to your mind when we say PUBLIC HOUSING" sluts was one responce. The guerilla girls were intrigral in the Tenat Embasy Protest (public tenants sleeping in tents rather than return to their dangerous homes) which saw all the tenants requests agreed to with major media coverage. 64 households were generously relocated and the estate marked for total redevelopment. The garden is now tightly controled by governement appointed managers who look after the community room too...there is no life or vibrancy...no plans for the future, not community collectivness...no community (outside the garden), no empowerment, no self respect, no accountability and no imagination....due...entirely to empire building persons who were threatened by the potential deminising of there reposnibilities on the estate....or maybe more so by the fact that community development frameworks achieve their goals and develope a life of their own...compared to there style which is welfarism at its ugliest.....
long live D Hazard...may the flees of a thousand camels infest your arm pits and groin and live longer than you........ for those women ...non of us can look back without feeling angst and angry | 
