Rosemeadow riots

Two months after violent riots rocked Rosemeadow, Tracey Spicer visits the notorious 3Ms to learn a valuable lesson – don’t judge a book by its cover.

The people of the 3Ms are portrayed as characters in a bloody Shakespearean play.

Walking into Macduff Way, as the sun sets over stiflingly hot south-western Sydney, it’s easy to confuse fact with fiction.

Heavily tattooed and pierced young men mill menacingly in front of fibro townhouses, their yards littered with broken toys, car parts and rubbish.

Windows are smashed, boarded and graffitied, walls stained and curtains torn from their rungs; suburbia, Mad Max-style.

Barely pubescent girls carry babies on their hips; one stops mid-stride to give her thirsty eight-month-old a swig of Coke.

Teenage P-platers perform burn-outs on an adjacent oval, a no-go zone for any kid who wants to kick a footy or fly a kite.

The whole community is suffering from battered wife syndrome.

These battlers have been beaten down so far, they don’t know how to get up again.

As I gingerly approach the group, I expect to be met with hostility, aggression and a string of expletives.

I am, after all, that most hated beast – a member of the media fraternity which has demonized and vilified these people.

But appearances can be deceiving.

One of the community leaders, Ray, proffers a handshake and politely asks who I work for.

When I answer, “The Telegraph”, I’m told that I’d “better not be like that last bloke who came here, who wrote that we’re all drug addicts”.

Between stutters and stammers, I explain that I actually want to know what they think can be done to improve their community.

Their faces visibly soften.

These people are so unaccustomed to being heard, they’ve almost been rendered mute.

What follows is a series of intelligent, articulate and reasonable suggestions on how to create a better future.

“There needs to be things for the kids,” Ray says, passionately.

He’s sick of the government and local council making promises they don’t keep – like the nine-year-wait for a skateboard park which is now being built in the next suburb.

19-year-old Luke agrees, saying “the coppers just harass us all the time, like if we’re trying to ride a bike without a helmet or something. It’s bullsh*t.”

Ray insists January’s brawl was the result of a couple of “bad eggs” from Macbeth Way, and interlopers looking for a fight.

“We’re all multi-cultural here. We’re like one big family,” he says.

While several young patriots proudly display tattoos of the Southern Cross, they rumble, laugh and joke with neighbours of Islander, Aboriginal, Asian and European descent.

As I drive towards the adjacent cul-de-sac, Macbeth Way, the mood shifts.

A glassy-eyed young man wanders aimlessly across the pocked, concrete courtyard; a leather-faced, toothless man gives a death stare and approaches the car brandishing a screwdriver.

Many tenants have fled Macbeth Way since the January ‘troubles’ and subsequent revenge bashings three weeks ago.

In a bizarre twist, the rest have been told they could be relocated right next door – to the remaining ‘M’s, Macduff and Malcolm.

“What’s the purpose of cleaning the area up if they’re just moving the problems to the next streets,” asks John*, a wiry bloke with a foot-long beard and heavily tattooed arms.

He blames boredom for the problems, saying the teenagers thrive on the excitement of violent confrontations.

It’s an issue the NSW Housing Minister David Borger knows only too well; he grew up in public housing as a ward of the state.

“We’re trying to attract a better class of family (to the 3Ms),” he says.  “If all your peers are leaving school, your expectations aren’t high,” he says.

To change the social mix, 30 townhouses are being knocked down to make way for a 50-bed ‘seniors accommodation’ block.

“Why bring oldies in – there’ll just be more robberies,” John says. “Come night-time, there’ll be lockdown.”

The estate’s matriarch agrees.

Bev has lived in Macbeth Way for almost 40 years, in a tidy, well-kept home with her two adored rottweilers.

“Fancy putting aged pensioners here,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s dangerous.”

Despite cowering in her home with two of her grandchildren during the January riots, Bev says she was shocked and devastated to receive her eviction notice.

“Why should I move?” she says. “What have I done wrong?”

The state government’s spending $20m to change the much-maligned Radburn design in the estate, said to have contributed to the powder keg.

“You can’t breathe here,” says Father Chris Riley, who runs a Youth Off The Streets sausage sizzle every week.  “There’s no privacy, no respect.”

Of the government’s plan to turn two vacant townhouses into a community centre, Father Riley worries that “because it’s a confined space, there’s more potential for simmering hostilities to spill over into violence”.

YOTS is about to build a community centre in nearby Macquarie Fields, the scene of wild riots four years ago.

Since then, crime rates have dropped by 40 percent through better policing, physical changes to the urban design, and youth programs.

“I’m proud to say that I’m from Macquarie Fields,” says Natalie Techera, who’s received a $2000 academic achievement award from the state government.

But for those living in Rosemeadow, the stigma remains.

“I went for a retail job and they looked at my driver’s licence and said ‘you’re from the 3Ms, piss off’,” 20-year-old Steve* says bitterly. “It’s happened to plenty of others, too.”

The Housing Department believes part of the problem is ‘nominative determinism’ – you put a whole bunch of people in streets named after bloody Shakespearean plays and they behave like those characters.

The suggestion that Rosemeadow, by any other name, would ‘smell sweeter’ is met with derision.

“Actions speak louder than words,” says Ray, who has a blunt message for politicians and bureaucrats. “Don’t offer no more. Do something.”

Others are optimistic.

Linda, a well-groomed mother-of-one, believes there’s a 50/50 split in the community about the government’s plans, which she says “look lovely”.

“A lot of us are hoping it will boost morale,” she insists, her kind eyes shining.

My heart goes out to the decent, hard-working people of the 3Ms who are trying to build a better life for themselves and their loved ones.

Equally I understand why many others, struggling with the hand they’ve been dealt, give up hope and turn to drugs, alcohol and crime.

Walking back to the car, I glance over my shoulder as the curtain falls on another day in the 3Ms.

Steve* and his mates are playing cricket, lobbing sixers over the rooftops; two little boys do wheelies on their pushies; a small, blonde-haired girl with cherubic cheeks shares a shy, closed-lip smile.

It gives me hope that the inhabitants of these streets won’t meet the tragic fate of their namesakes.

*Most residents didn’t want to be identified for fear of neighbourhood retribution.