Monica Barone

Caitlin Morrissey

Monica, thank you so much for saying yes to our invitation to speak about The DNA of Cities and to share your perspectives. What is The DNA of Sydney to you?

Monica Barone

Hi, Caitlin. In Australia, we have a tradition of having acknowledgements or Welcome to Country. If you are a First Nations person from a particular place, then you will do a welcome. And if you’re not a First Nations person, or if you’re not from a particular place, you will do acknowledgement. And so in the spirit of that, I’ll do an acknowledgement. I acknowledge that we’re having this interview here at the City of Sydney, which is on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. And when we do those acknowledgments, we pay respects to Elders past, present and emerging. And what’s really important and significant about the acknowledgement or Welcome to Country is that it is a reminder that before colonisation for over 60,000 years First Nations people occupied this land, and they took enormous care of it. In fact, they did no harm to it compared to the harm that we have done in just shy of 250 years. So, it also reminds us that as citizens or as leaders in this country and in this city, we are privileged, and we have to exercise our role as stewards and custodians. And so it does remind us of our responsibilities to the land and to the people of the land.

And the reason I say that is because I want to answer your question, ‘what is the DNA of Sydney’, by talking about inclusion and unity. One of the things that is really in the DNA of Sydney is the fact that we have been able to include people from hundreds of different nationalities. Largely we have been able to do this and live in harmony and largely share the prosperity. That’s another way of saying that part of the DNA of Sydney is a sense of fairness. And so, when we’re at our best, we are fair and we are inclusive and we are able to live with a multiplicity of people, with a multiplicity of ideas and belief systems in a really pluralistic kind of society. And that’s very, very special.

Having said that, as always, your greatest strength can be your greatest weakness. What can also be in the DNA of Sydney is exclusion and an unequal distribution of resources and wealth. And so that’s one way of thinking about what’s essential to who we are.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you so much, Monica, for getting us started there. As an immediate follow up, I would just like to ask you where you think those sort of strands of fairness, inclusivity, this harmony and this respect of various different cultures and belief systems and this pluralism has come from, and perhaps also this manifestation of exclusion? Where do you see the DNA of Sydney having emerged from if we were to look back at its history?

Monica Barone

Well, I think it is a consequence of its history. Sydney was a penal colony. The first settlers were from Great Britain. But then over many years, migrants from all over the world were invited to come to this country, to build this country. My family came from Italy. We’re from one of those communities. As a consequence of people coming from all over the world, we’ve just grown up and lived with people from all sorts of places. And of course we brought with us our beliefs, our heritage, our cultural practices and all of those sorts of things. I think also we’ve had some really very good policies in this country which have been about that.

Sometimes I preside over citizenship ceremonies when the Lord Mayor is unable to attend, which is very rare because they’re such wonderful events and nobody wants to miss them. When you speak to people who are becoming citizens, the words are very, very potent and they speak about the fact that there are great privileges that come with citizenship, but  there are great obligations. And it’s very clear in those words that, if you come here and you become a citizen, you share in all of those privileges and opportunities, irrespective of where you come from. Those things are applied equally. At the same time, your responsibilities are applied equally. And so we’ve got  a citizenship process that promulgates that thinking.

We’ve had policies of multiculturalism, which have really made it very clear to people that you are absolutely entitled to maintain and celebrate your cultural heritage, to practice your religion or your cultural practices, but you still have to adhere to the law of the land. So those things are really embedded in the legal system and in the DNA of our country. So that’s been really fabulous.

Of course, what happens though, in any society, if people do not feel that they are being treated fairly, if they do not feel that the resources are adequately shared, then that can lead to a sense of division or social disharmony. And of course, when people experience a sense of scarcity, then they start to think that someone else is taking away something that they’re entitled to. And that’s something that we really have to ward off.

So that’s my description of what it is. And I think that that is so precious and so special. And when you travel around Sydney and you experience the wonderful cultural diversity that exists and you see so many communities living in harmony, it’s just joyful and a wonderful part of Sydney.

Caitlin Morrissey

So from your point of view, is there one Sydney? Is there more than one Sydney? And if we were to understand its multiplicity, how might we do that?

And I’m asking this to you particularly as the CEO of the City of Sydney, and perhaps to ask you a little bit about the relationship there as well between the City of Sydney and the metropolitan area. So quite a large question, but where do your instincts take you when you think about how many Sydneys there are?

Monica Barone

I’m the CEO of the City of Sydney, which is only one of 33 local government areas that make up Greater Sydney. We do contain the major CBD of Sydney. So, our part of Sydney does generate about 23% of the state’s economy, and about 6% or 7% of the nation’s economy, so it’s very significant in terms of the contribution that it makes.

I also chair Resilient Sydney, which is the 33 councils of Greater Sydney. And when this question has been put to us and when we developed the Resilience Plan, we decided that we were going to talk about the fact that there really was one Sydney but with many different parts. Because we really wanted the narrative of the Resilience Plan to be about unity, and to say that people don’t understand or observe local government boundaries -   They make no difference. You need to go where you need to go to get the things that you need. You go where your friends are. You go to the resources or to the assets or the infrastructure that you’re using. It’s a good way of organising who delivers what services where, but it’s not a way of defining a city.

So I like to say that we’re one Sydney because we need to understand that we need and depend on each other and especially as we face more challenges like the impacts of climate change. You know the flood isn’t going to differentiate between local government areas. The bushfire is not going to. The heatwave is not going to. When those things happen, we all have to work together and look after our whole city.

Having said that though what’s beautiful about Sydney is that you’ve got all these different places that are really, really different. So the inner city is very famous for, of course, the national icons like the Opera House and the Bridge, and it’s got a fantastic CBD, but it’s also really at the heart of the LGBTIQA+ community. We have Oxford Street, the famous Sydney Mardi Gras, and now Qtopia museum, which is a museum for our queer community. That’s very much part of this part of Sydney.

We also have one of the largest urban Aboriginal populations in Sydney. But then the other really large urban population is out in Blacktown and that’s where I was last night. And there you have a huge Aboriginal population and people from many Indian and Filipino backgrounds. So you have people from all sorts of different cultural backgrounds who live there. And of course, it’s got a completely different feel and vibe, is also so interesting and so wonderful. Yes, the places are very different, but I think we need to celebrate and promote one Sydney, an inclusive Sydney that can work together and where people can depend on each other.

Caitlin Morrissey

In your answers so far, you’ve been really highlighting the people of Sydney and this incredible diversity and plurality, as you said. But when people come to Sydney, why do they come there to live? More than just jobs, I suppose. But what is the sense of opportunity or promise of coming to Sydney as you see it? And how may that have evolved?

Monica Barone

So I’m going to talk a little bit about the promise. But I think we are struggling with delivering on that promise. I recently had some family out from Europe and a cousin from Italy and his wife is from Taiwan and, of course, they’re much younger than me. This was their first time to Sydney and I think they absolutely loved it. We didn’t just stay in the inner city, we moved around different parts of Sydney, not quite as far as Blacktown or Penrith, but I did get to take them out to see different parts of Sydney. They found it useful. They found it vibrant, and of course they loved the quality of life. I mean, you know, to be in a city where you can then get to a fabulous beach and then get back to your office, and it’s all here. The beautiful harbour. So there is a kind of lightness and kind of celebratory festive feel about Sydney. And you see that in all different parts of Sydney. Of course, it’s incredibly expensive and as a consequence it’s becoming extremely difficult for young people to get started in Sydney or to make a go of it in Sydney. So people might be attracted to that festive feeling, that vibrancy, but the reality of daily life can be difficult given the cost of living, particularly the cost of housing.

Caitlin Morrissey

I think it’s like you said, it’s a city to be really charmed by, especially when you’re not from there. I visited for the first time last year from Manchester here in the north of England, where it’s currently very dark and gloomy. And all you can think about is having this incredible proximity to beaches, but just this gorgeous landscape of streets and such beautiful trees and things like that really stood out to me when I was there.

And so that sort of brings us onto another question. You mentioned the beaches. But we have a question here about the geography of Sydney and the environment and the place of the natural environment, landscape and climate in the character of Sydney and how that’s been shaped by the the environmental conditions of the city.

Monica Barone

Yeah, of course, there’s that really beautiful harbour. And I think that harbour is a backdrop to the way we sell our city. I mean, it’s very few places that have such a beautiful backdrop against which you can project the image of your city. So for many people, you have access to the beaches, then you have access to the national parks. You have access to that sort of natural environment. Another part of the DNA of Sydney is that people do enjoy an outdoor life. You know, people do get out. They go into the water. They go walking and all the rest. But I don’t want people to think that everyone in Sydney has that. There are a lot of parts of Sydney that don’t have the same level of infrastructure or natural beauty. That’s part of Sydney, but it’s not the experience for everybody. But there are a lot of wonderful natural places and that has shaped the way people choose to live here and the way people know themselves and think of themselves.

You mention the trees and I thought that was interesting. My family that visited, the first thing they said when they came into Sydney was-- and I’m talking about the City of Sydney, because that’s where I work and that’s where we spend a lot of time. “Oh,” they said, “it’s so green!” I thought, you know, that’s pretty recent. It’s during the time of Lord Mayor Clover Moore that we planted a lot of those trees. And now they’re growing and people are saying it’s pretty green, but it has been a battle to get that many trees. And we have a lot more that we want to plant. But it’s very hard to find space. Because, of course, now we’re at the point where to get more trees we have to take away other things like parking spaces to achieve that. So it’s lovely when someone comes from outside and says look what a great job you’ve done, look at those wonderful trees, as though they’ve always been there but of course in the inner city it’s been a lot of work to get to that point.

Caitlin Morrissey

That’s such a fascinating insight and we’ll come on to leadership and how leaders in the city have shaped its DNA. But that strikes me as being an insight there about that.

] wanted to ask you about the physical and infrastructural character of Sydney and perhaps the vernacular and where we see the DNA of Sydney or whether DNA Sydney is expressed through its built form and streets, places, buildings, institutions, those sorts of things?

Monica Barone

So, again, Sydney really has a big geographic footprint. And so, because I work in the inner city, it’s very different to different parts of Sydney. And I hope that you’re speaking to lots of people and you’re getting a diversity of views about this.

I think that we are getting much better at expressing who we are in the built form. Right across Australia, early on, people built things like they were living in Europe. And if you look at Australian art at the beginning – I don’t mean Aboriginal art, I mean post-colonial art – the first landscapes and paintings that were being developed, you’d think they were pictures of Great Britain. They weren’t pictures of Australia. And then you can see over time as the artists adapted and became confident, they started to actually depict the landscape as it actually was and depict life as it actually was. So I think it’s safe to say that was the same with the built environment. There are plenty of houses in Sydney and in Australia that I’ve lived in and you’d think, what on earth were they thinking? Why would you build a house like this here when there’s so much sunlight but the house doesn’t face the sun? Or it’s really cold and there’s no heating. Why on earth are we still doing this? Why haven’t we developed architecture or built form that responds to the actual Australian conditions. And I think that would be the same for the streetscapes and the whole kind of form. I think we’re getting better at that.

So now I’m just going to speak about the City of Sydney because that’s where I work. We have really, really focused on that. And again, my relatives are getting a lot of airplay tonight. But one of the things that they observed – which was terrific, because of course, we’ve worked very hard to achieve this – is how many of the new buildings address the street. We went past one particular building, I remember how hard the city staff worked to get the front of that building to really open up, to have a stairway leading up that really feels like a public place, right? It doesn’t look like the stairs that belong to the building. It looks like stairs that anyone can sit on. And then within that, you look in and you see the cafe and anyone can go in.

And this is another thing, actually, when I’m talking about the DNA of the city or the attributes of the city. Having a sense of the door is open. Everyone can come in, right? So, we’ve been really focused on working with architects and on the street to express that. And it’s great when people come from somewhere else and say, “Oh, look at that. That looks like it’s a public place,” And it’s not but you know, it is, because people are welcome. The other thing they observed was that everything was free. We went to the beach, they said, “Do we have to pay?” I said, “No, you don’t have to pay. Beaches are public.” I said “You can get changed here”. They said, “Do we have to pay?” I said, “No, it’s just a change room!” Went to a harbour pool. “Do we have to pay?” “No, just get in!”

So too with the parks we have. In our planning of the inner city, we have fiercely defended that public spaces must be free and feel welcoming. So that is a piece of work that I’m not suggesting we started, but this administration over the last 20 years under Clover Moore has fiercely fought for and contributed to. And so, you see it in the new architecture and then you see it compared with the buildings that don’t do that or where the streetscape has been sacrificed for the building. As I always said when I started here, every time you touch the city, it’s an opportunity to improve the city. Right? So every development, every footpath, every time you touch it, you have to be aiming to improve it.

But that’s because we also have developed policies that articulate what that improvement looks like. So that comes to the urban planning piece. The urban policy has been very explicitly developed to express those things that we’ve been talking about, but not just in words, in streetscape designs, in design codes, in the materials that you must use, in the trees you must plant. All of that has been codified into urban policy and into the procedures and guidelines to achieve that urban policy. And so, when an opportunity or the city is about to be touched, that’s how it will be touched. And so I think that’s how you go from the ideas we were talking about earlier to an expression in the built form. And we’re seeing a lot of that. We’re doing a good job.

And we’re not just seeing it in the inner city. You know, you go to my colleagues in the other local governments and you can see the quality of the wonderful public infrastructure. Everybody has really understood that when you give the public great infrastructure, beautiful parks, swimming pools, sports centres, as well as great streets, then that’s when you get inclusion -- because that’s all public. Everyone can go. Doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor. Doesn’t matter what your cultural background. Everyone can go. And that’s how you design in the fairness. That’s how you express fairness and inclusion in your built form.

Caitlin Morrissey

It’s so terrific. And thank you so much for saying that because one of the big things we’re trying to understand through this podcast is how is the DNA of a city expressed, and where do we experience it? And you just explained that so clearly. But what you’ve also done is explain the years of hard work that goes into making that happen once the DNA is understood or realised or perhaps it always was, but then how is that expressed through policy or expressed through design codes. So, thank you so much for making that so clear. We’re sort of going to bring up the scale of the conversation slightly now, but it will still be relevant to everything that you’ve just been saying, to ask you about the role of Sydney in Australia and what is distinctive about Sydney? And of course, you mentioned earlier on the role of the City of Sydney and the incredible contribution it makes economically to the country.

But is there anything else you’d like to add to that? And that can be from any sphere. So that can be cultural, that can be in any way your instincts take you in terms of the distinctiveness of Sydney and Australia.

Monica Barone

So I think what’s wonderful about Sydney is we have a number of major cities and they’re all really distinct and special and quite different. I mean, Melbourne has a very different sort of feel-- it’s a very, very different city. It feels more European actually. It’s a great city, right? You know, Brisbane is a great city. You know, Hobart is a great city. Canberra is a great city. But they’re all really, really different.

What’s distinct about Sydney? I think it must be to do with the weather. I mean, my father talks about when he got off the ship in Australia and he just couldn’t believe he’d never seen such a blue sky. He’d never seen light like that, right? And he’s from the south of Italy where they have beautiful beaches. So there’s something about the weather, the light that is playful and optimistic, you know. And so you just look, I think you feel better when the sun’s shining. That’s something that we’ve really got going for us.

So what’s the role of Sydney? Look, it’s really important to the city’s economy-- to Australia’s economy. It’s really important to have branding. I mean, I know that annoys some of the other cities, but the fact is that those icons like the Opera House and the harbour and the Bridge are so distinct that you only need to put up a glimpse of them and you know where you are. And so that really helps with the branding of Australia.

Caitlin Morrissey

Terrific answer. I know what you mean about the light. The light does shine differently in Sydney, I think as well. I don’t know what it is, but it’s distinctive and it’s noticeable.

We are going to come now on to the question about inventions, innovations or discoveries. And I want to ask you though, perhaps another way of entering this question is perhaps to understand Sydney’s role as a platform or a stage to be discovered or to be seen globally. Is this a place where talent comes to build their career or find that global recognition or find that national recognition? Does Sydney have a role as a platform for the scaling up of ideas and inventions? Perhaps there are slightly different ways to go into this, perhaps more about Sydney’s role rather than the individual expressions or of discovery.

Monica Barone

I’m going to give you an example of a great innovation and then talk about where we’re not so good. Look, I think the Opera House is the obvious one. There was so much innovation in that building. There were so many things that had never been done before. There were so many things that were developed that are still extraordinary today. Some of the engineering and apart from that the design. The brilliance, absolute brilliance of the design. I mean, I go past it every single day and I’m still in awe when I look at it. And I think, and I’m not an expert in this, but if you speak to people who are experts in the kind of architectural and engineering achievements in that building, they’re all extraordinary.

But your second part of your question was, is Australia a place where innovation thrives? And the answer is no. I think that we have incredible people, incredible universities. We have had a number of incredible things developed in this country. But we have not been great and Sydney has not been great at supporting something from an idea through to an industry, which is what we need. You know, we do the ideas-bit well, but we have not been a city that has invested enough in or supported the development of the ideas or the new products to the point where they lead to future products or industries for this country. And we spend a lot of time trying to do that, but I think we need to do more. So I think, actually, if people come to Australia to be the platform for that, often they’re disappointed and they don’t necessarily stay.

Caitlin Morrissey

That’s really interesting for you to say. Another similar question, which is how we’re understanding how the DNA of the city is expressed or shaped, is by asking about leaders. And we’ve spoken a little bit about the leadership of Clover Moore and the leadership of the City of Sydney. Who are Sydney’s most influential leaders as you see them? And what is the of the character of their leadership?

And then there’s sort of a second part to that question, which is who are Sydney’s quiet leaders that perhaps don’t get the international recognition or are known by name very widely? To ask if there’s anyone that you’d like to highlight in your answer there?

Monica Barone

So, I mean, obviously I work for the Lord Mayor Clover Moore and she has been an extraordinary leader. I mean, she’s been Lord Mayor for 20 years but she was also a local member for many years before then. And, you know, her vision for Sydney has been consistent and she has fought for decades and we are seeing it come to fruition. I think everyone’s really excited seeing, you know, now that it’s really being realised, how amazing and wonderful it is.

I think that we’ve got some incredible cultural leaders. And I’m going to name John Kaldor as one. I think the public art projects that John Kaldor has done have got to really be among the most amazing in the world. I think people appreciate what he has contributed and how brilliant it is and how fortunate we are to have had a cultural leader of his stature. Maybe not enough, but certainly that would be somebody who has really contributed something really significant.

I’m going to go now to the quiet leaders or the ones that you may not name and not know by name. One of the things that’s wonderful about the City of Sydney is that we are very central to the civil rights history of Sydney, of Australia. And so there are many Aboriginal leaders whose advocacy was not just in Sydney but part of it all was centred around Sydney and around the Redfern area of City of Sydney. And there are very many very brave people who really advocated for social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and are extraordinary.

And of course, we have leaders in our multicultural communities who, you know, are really standing up for inclusion and social justice. And now more than ever, we depend on them to help us maintain social harmony in our country. There are so many leaders in our wonderful city and they come from all walks of life.

Caitlin Morrissey

Thank you. You mentioned when you talking about Resilient Sydney that there’s this sort of collective leadership between the 33 councils. And how is this notion of collective leadership something that’s emerging in Sydney? Or where do we see collective leadership in the city nowadays?

Monica Barone

One of the challenges that we have in Sydney is that really there are too many cooks. We have three levels of government and then we have 33 councils. So it’s not like we have three levels of government but one local government does all of Sydney and then the state does the state and then the federal does the federal. You have 33 councils just in Sydney and about 140 I think across New South Wales. The downside of that is that no one’s in charge and no one’s held accountable and that can be extremely frustrating and it means all change is extremely slow.

The upside is that because we have to do so much through collaboration and persuasion, when we do do something, it sticks. So that’s the way of operating that I’ve had to use because I don’t have any authority. I have to use persuasion and collaboration to try to get things done. And so do all my colleagues across those 33 councils. And it is extremely hard and it is extremely slow, but it is also extremely satisfying because I know people in all of those local government areas and they all do extraordinary things for their communities. I think people don’t really recognise or realise how much happens because of the role of local governments, and those dedicated elected representatives and those dedicated, dedicated staff. When I go and visit other councils and they show me around the wonderful things that they’re doing, all I ever meet is just these passionate purpose-driven people who just want to make a difference in their local government area. And there are a lot of wonderful things happening.

So what we tried to do with the collaboration is to celebrate the difference and the place-based solutions, but try to have some overarching kind of purpose or practice so that we can get better value out of all of that effort. So it’s a kind of social version of having a really great urban policy and design code. It’s saying, do we all agree that housing for our diverse communities is important? Yes, we do. So what could each of us do to meet the needs in our own particular communities, responding to their diversity? Not saying that the diversity that we have to deal with is the same diversity that you have to deal with. But we do agree that we need to do more to provide housing for our diverse communities. And that’s the collaborative piece, right? And then what tools can we share that will enable us to be more effective? And that can be really wonderful because then everybody has their own version and you get these amazing, as you said, tapestry of things being delivered. But on the other hand, no one is compelled and so people can also opt out really easily. That’s how we work because that’s how we have to work. There’s a lot of good about that, but it’s also very slow.

Caitlin Morrissey

It sounds like there’s this sort of collective purpose that’s identified across the 33 local governments, but it’s very situated response. I can imagine it’s very difficult to sort of even agree what, I suppose, some of the common purposes are intuitive, but the situated response, I can imagine it’s quite difficult to organise all of that.

Monica Barone

We did it by developing a Resilience Plan, right, that we all agreed on. So that was the process to determine what is it that we all agree we need to do. And the beautiful thing about the resilience methodology is that it’s a kind of, you know, it’s a risk assessment through the eyes of the community, right? And so the thing about resilience is that it was absolutely a game changer when we started doing this project because it took a lot of the ideology out of the conversation, right?

I’ll give you the example of climate change. When we started, there were some councils that didn’t believe in climate change or some that refused to act on climate change. And so we decided that we weren’t even going to talk about climate change. That it was immaterial. The only thing we’re going to talk about was living with the climate, right? So instead of calling it dealing with climate change, we called it living with the climate. So I could talk to all 33 mayors, just irrespective of what they believed or what they said they stood for and say, I don’t care what you believe. When the flood comes, what are you going to do? Because you know it’s going to come or you’ve already had one. Or when the bushfire comes or when the heat wave comes, I don’t care what you believe. The point is, it’s coming or it’s already hit, what are you going to do? And no one could argue with that, right?

So by framing it differently, we were able to achieve unity across a very diverse city around the things that were most important. And the most important thing was being able to adapt to climate change. So by starting with that, by starting with disaster, which is the disaster’s coming, how do you adapt? And then how do you cope with the disaster? And then saying, the disaster’s going to keep coming, what might we do so that when it comes we’re better placed to bounce back because we’ve done certain things. So if the heat wave has come and it’s going to keep coming, okay, yes, you can deal with the crisis, which is ‘let’s get all the elderly people into an air-conditioned building’. But what if we planted a lot of trees so that we just kept it a little cooler anyway, so that next time the heat wave comes, at least around the homes and where people are congregating, we can reduce it by a few degrees. So there might be some days when we don’t have to all go to the air-conditioned shelter because we’ve tried to cool the built environment.

So you start with the disaster and how you’re going to deal with the crisis, but then you say, how do we mitigate the crisis? So then you say, if there’s people living in inadequate housing or not living in housing at all, that’s not going to be very good when the crisis comes. What shall we do about that? That’s why that Resilient Sydney methodology was so brilliant in uniting us.

Caitlin Morrissey

It’s incredible work. It’s so inspiring to talk to you today, to be honest, Monica. So one of the questions we have is about the misconceptions that you may encounter about Sydney and what those are, if indeed there are any, or is this a well understood city as you see it?

Monica Barone

I think, look, I think one of the things we really have to do a lot more work on is the fact that  to the outsider, people think that the City of Sydney and that inner city is Sydney, but it’s not. It’s a very important and wonderful part of Sydney, but it’s not how most Sydneysiders live. So, you know, we don’t all have access to a beautiful beach. We don’t all live near the water where it’s much cooler. We don’t all have the same level of infrastructure, transport infrastructure particularly, but also recreational infrastructure, all those sorts of things. We do not all have that. It’s a misconception. Often, I think people think and tell the story of Sydney as though it’s that. And that’s really not right. We really have to get the story out about what it’s not and we have to do something to improve those things for people.

Caitlin Morrissey

And we have a sort of similar question, which is about myths. But the question is really asking about when stories are told about Sydney or perhaps songs are sung about Sydney, what is the essence of the city that they capture? Is there anything in common in the mythology of Sydney?

Monica Barone

So I think, you know, the mythology is the harbour, the Opera House, the celebration, the festivity, the inclusion, right? That’s what people capture, you know. The underside of it, though is, and all cities have this, there is an underside that isn’t as rosy and festive and filled with light and we have to constantly work towards addressing that.

Caitlin Morrissey

And then, Monica, what is the future of Sydney as you see it? And how will its DNA and everything that we’ve spoken about shape or play a role in that future?

Monica Barone

So I’m going to speak about the future that I hope for our city. So I’ve been telling everybody this is my Christmas story. This is my Christmas story this year because it speaks to my hope.

This year, every year, the Lord Mayor has these Christmas parties and, people  we’ve worked with through the year are invited and it’s always great fun. And the Lord Mayor gives a wonderful speech and tells everybody what we’ve done this year. And we all love it, the staff, because you get to see the year in review and it’s really terrific. And I get to see many of the people we’ve worked with throughout the year, which is lovely.

This year, as I was leaving the party, which was going on and on and people didn’t want to leave and it was just fantastic. And as I left, I ran into the last person who I hadn’t seen and who called out and said, “Hello, Monica.” And it was a gentleman who runs a co-op housing organisation here in Sydney. We do a lot of affordable housing, but we also are trying to do lots of, I’m calling them sort of boutique projects, small projects that speak to particular need. And one of the projects that we supported last year, through the sale at a very large discount of a series of houses, was we sold them to the co-op organisation and they’re going to set up a transgender housing project. And he was there with two Aboriginal transgender women who both threw their arms around me and said, “We’re going to move into this housing.” And I know one of them, and I know that they have lived with insecure housing and now they are going to have secure housing in their community of people that they want to live and share with, within a bigger community where they feel safe and welcome.

And I thought, okay, if that is all we had accomplished this year, that would have been enough. We’ve accomplished a lot more than that. But that, I thought, okay, what a brilliant way to end the year, you know, that two more people who are vulnerable because of their cultural background, because of gender, other things, two vulnerable people are going to be a lot less vulnerable and a lot more secure because of something we did. And I’m telling everyone that’s my Christmas story this year because that’s what my hope for Sydney is. That every person will have the right kind of home in the right place in their community to feel safe and secure and welcome and able to live the best life that they possibly, you know, the life they deserve.

And so that’s my hope for Sydney. And look, through Resilient Sydney, we are working with our colleagues and other councils saying, come on, everybody’s got a piece of land. Everybody’s got a piece of property. Every house, every home counts, right? And so if everybody did, as I say to our 33 council members, if you all did 500 homes, that’s 16,000 homes for people who really need it. And 500 homes is not that hard. So that’s my hope.