Musgrave Crackdown: Safety or Politics

It's now been over a month since the beginning of the Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and Brisbane City Council's crackdown on the homeless tent cities at Musgrave Park (and Kurilpa Point Park).

And since then, there has been a recognisable decline in tent sleepers staying at Musgrave Park, many choosing to migrate elsewhere to access necessary resources and/or avoid pressure from the Council and police.

According to several sources among community organisations operating in Musgrave, several of these rough sleepers have "dropped off" and lost contact with them.

And while concerns of safety and "anti-social behaviour" were the justifications given for turning off the power and the barbecues, installing temporary 24/7 cameras, and announcing a police task force, it seems for each aspect of the Council's current approach there is something that changes the story that both the Schrinner Council and the mainstream media are telling.

Turning Off the Power

According to the public records of the BCC's November 5th proceedings, Gabba Ward Green's Councillor Trina Massey pushed for a motion to have the power turned back on, which lost 10-7.

While supporting the need to keep the power off, Cr Sarah Hutton proclaimed that the only power outlets available in the parks are within "public barbecues and locked switchboards...[which] have been repeatedly vandalised and hotwired."

Cr Hutton stated that this caused "a very dangerous electrical fire...[that] involved a tent that was illegally accessing [the electrical box]."

"The fire was extremely dangerous and forced the decision for us to switch the power."

But according to a council official, the power was cut due to an electrical team, during a usual visit into Musgrave Park, finding the electrical box with jerry-rigged powerpoints and leads running into the tents during rainfall.

The electrical team informed that "someone was about to get electrocuted and would've died."

"It wasn't the accessing; it wasn't the breaking [into the electrical box]; they've been fixing those boxes for years."

Thus it was decided that continuously locking the box was not a solution to prevent someone from getting hurt or killed.

Therefore, the solution became turning the power off to keep the people living there safe, not because of any "anti-social behaviour," as Council, the Lord Mayor, and mainstream media have chosen to solely blame it on.

The council official further explained that having the power cut also impacts the ability of event organisers, as well as council and contract workers like cleaners, to fulfil their tasks at the parks.

"Can the boxes be accessed safely without being tampered with? The [electrical] boxes weren't made with weather in mind."

So in order for the power to come back on, two decisions have to be made: Can safe access to power be ensured, and "the political one," that being whether the park is considered safe enough.

As for safe alternatives to accessible electricity, the Greens have pushed for USB ports being installed in public parks, much like what you see in public buses.

In the Nov 5th Council proceedings, this was dismissed by Cr Vicki Howard and Cr Hutton as an inadequate solution to homelessness.
However, there are many benefits to installing USB ports in public parks, especially Musgrave Park and Kurilpa Point Park.

The main purpose rough sleepers use electricity is for charging their phones or powering items that connect via USB cables, also USB ports provide a lower voltage, making them more cost-effective and safer to use.

But as long as there's an LNP majority Brisbane City Council, USB ports won't be seen in public parks.

BBQs

While there hasn't been any progress on returning power, the BBQs at both Musgrave and Kurilpa Point Park have been restored, as it didn't take long for Council to learn why it wasn't a good idea to turn them off.

Without access to public BBQs, rough sleepers were bringing camping gas stove burners into the park to cook food.

Given that there were tensions between individuals and/or groups at the park or with people not from the park, these camp stoves with their gas canisters became dangerous to the point of tents burning down with people inside.

Some of these incidents could have possibly been accidents caused by misusing the portable stoves, but according to a few Musgrave Park tent sleepers, they have witnessed individuals setting tents alight, another waking up to see their tent burning down around them.

Because of this, the Queensland Police Service (QPS) and the Queensland Fire Department urged the Council to turn the BBQs back on.

Surveillance Cameras

Another feature of the Council's crackdown was installing temporary 24/7 "rapid deployment" surveillance cameras at the parks.

And again, the reported purpose was to address aggressive behaviour.

Out of all of Council's announced policy approaches, the cameras received some support from community groups and rough sleepers, seeing them as a means to help rough sleepers feel more safe.

But the cameras were installed because of claims of council and contract workers experiencing abuse and assault when working in the parks.

"The cameras are monitored while the workers are present...but are always recording."

According to the official, council and contract workers refused to go into the parks unless something was done.

They clarified that it's possible the perpetrators "don't live in the park," and "the workers don't know as they go [to Musgrave Park and Kurilpa Point Park] only once every two weeks."

Police Taskforce

Last of all, and arguably the most controversial part of the Lord Mayor's crackdown was the police taskforce that Schrinner asked the QLD police commissioner to create.

But according to a conversation Paul Slater, North West Community Group, revealed that he had with a high-ranking South Brisbane area police officer, "there is no such task force, and nothing has changed in the police's approach to homelessness or their cooperation with the council."

This is further supported by a QPS media statement that avoids using the term "taskforce," instead focusing on the QPS being a part of a "multi-agency response" led by the BCC.

The most material explanation of what the QPS is doing is "patrols...throughout community spaces to ensure safety and to prevent or disrupt any anti-social behaviour."

However, other than the phrase "anti-social behaviour", one could argue that this is the established purpose of a police force.

And it should be noted that there is still no QPS supplied evidence to show that the crime rate within Musgrave Park has increased significantly, courtesy of Kenji Sato's recent article on ABC.

So while it is still inconclusive of whether there is or will be a homeless tent city police taskforce or not, it does seem the QPS aren't as willing to push the point of one as is Council.

So why would the Lord Mayor call for a police taskforce for the tent cities atop of the other measures taken if there doesn’t seem to be the intention to establish one?

As Slater also said in his post, "the council is deliberately misleading the public and trying to push an anti-homeless rhetoric in the press to change the conversation from helping [the homeless] to moving them on."

Was Brisbane City Council's crackdown on tent cities genuinely out of concern for community safety, or was it just politics?

Across all four facets: electricity, BBQs, cameras and a taskforce, the story isn't as straightforward as "those in the tent cities are becoming aggressive and abusive" yet it seems to be all that the Council wants to focus on.

We may never truly know, but we do know that the QPS crime statistics don't affirm Council's claims, that there are underpublicised reasons for Council's actions, and as Lord Mayor Schrinner said himself when announcing the crackdown days before the QLD election, "an LNP government would do a better job providing community safety for the people of Brisbane."