Time Out Sydney has a diverse audience – but two gripes often unite everyone. Based on comments from our readers, the common issues a big portion of us face living in this part of the world are: unaffordable housing and a lack of thriving nightlife after the sad hour of about 9pm. Hear hear?
A recent Productivity Commission report found Sydney is at risk of becoming a city without grandchildren, with working-aged people moving away to places with more affordable housing. The study found that between 2016 and 2021, Sydney lost twice as many people aged 30 to 40 as it gained: with 35,000 settling here and 70,000 leaving. That’s thousands of people who’d be starting and raising families in Sydney, filling jobs, starting businesses, employing people, contributing to communities and paying taxes.
Homelessness NSW has also reported big spikes in the number of people sleeping rough, all across Sydney.
And while we at Time Out know Sydney's nightlife is moving in the right direction (thanks to new 4am licenses being granted and a number of game-changing reforms), this town's hospitality industry has a long way to climb before it can fully recover from the effects of noise complaints, the pandemic and those dreaded lockout laws. (And then there's the little issue of people need affordable housing if they want enough money to spend on going out at night!)
So… where to from here? Time Out Sydney Editor Alice Ellis sat down with the NSW Premier, Chris Minns, to ask what’s being done to fix the housing and nightlife crises. Here's what he had to say...
What do you think are the biggest challenges facing Sydneysiders at the moment?
There's this nexus of interest rates and inflation just eating away at household incomes. And that goes for everybody. For double incomes in the suburbs to young people trying to make rent, and people can't work any harder than they already are. So that's the biggest challenge.
Housing affordability and availability are at their lowest in decades – how did we get here?
Our government’s really looked at it and gone, well we’re not responsible for interest rates or taxes, but the key responsibility of state governments, effectively, is housing. And if you look at the rhetoric from most of my predecessors, at some point they’ve jumped up and gone, it’s all the Commonwealth’s fault – a combination of tax preferment on housing or immigration. But if you actually look at the statistics, Melbourne and Sydney are roughly the same size. However, Sydney's average house price is $500,000 more than Melbourne's. And the reason for that is, if you look at last year as an example, we produced 48,000 dwellings, whereas Victoria produced 58,000 – you start adding that up year after year, then put a 20-year horizon on it, and you get to a situation where our housing prices are half-a-million dollars more than theirs, even though they're the same population size.
The Productivity Commission's report says Sydney's at risk of becoming a city without grandchildren. What sorts of problems does that create, if all the young workers leave for elsewhere?
It’s devastating. We've always had interstate migration in New South Wales. [Sydney is] often the first port of call for inbound migrants; and then, as people age, traditionally there’s a worldwide phenomenon where people move to warmer climates (so Queensland, where there’s cheaper housing, a warmer climate). What we’re now seeing is the reverse of that – young people are the largest cohort to leave New South Wales, and that is devastating. This next generation don't get a chance to write their chapter in the city’s history and, economically, it's terrible because young people are your economic engines. They're the ones that start businesses, they’re the largest contributors to PAYE tax. If they go, you're in big trouble. If you don't have young people, you don't have a future.
So what are the key things your government is doing about housing affordability and homelessness?
You can cut this a million different ways, but every independent economic report says the main issue is quantity of housing; and that's the one thing no one’s touched – not The Greens, not Labor, not the Libs – because it’s the hardest one.
Because you’ve got to have difficult conversations about what suburbs look like and what streets look like and how density works and how you shape your city, and the fact that the city necessarily will change. So that's the one we've decided to go for.
It's going to take some bark off us [as a government], there’s no question about that. There is genuine opposition to it. But it’s worth it. And in fact, I just think if you don't do it, I don't really know what the plan is for Sydney. I'd love for [those opposed to it] to explain their visions for Sydney, without us becoming the leading house builder on the eastern seaboard. We have to do it.
Can you tell me how the NSW Government tackles that – so do you plan to facilitate contractors to be able to build more affordable housing, as opposed to just building more public housing?
There are about 20 or 30 specific policy changes that will mean more apartments, more townhouses, more high-rise apartments on transport lines.
Other than the Soviet Union, and to an extent Singapore, nobody has got scale with public housing; other places have blended models. We’re going to do a mix of all things: we're going to have the old Department of Housing [public] housing, and we’re in the process of rolling a lot of that out – social housing that’s government owned, government built on government land. We've got an extremely dynamic Housing Minister, Rose Jackson – she just works around the clock. She's on a mission. She’s on that. We're knocking over California bungalows built after the Second World War, and we're building terraces, dual-lock [dual occupancy] houses, and they look beautiful: two, three bedrooms, backyards. Yeah, they're a little bit closer together, but they’re great, and they’re where people want to live. Also, on government land we’re requiring 30 per cent of it to be social or affordable housing.
We're also providing big incentives for private development. So, if they can give us 15 per cent social housing on their products, we will give them an extra 30 per cent height and floor space rations on the land, which is what New York does, what London does, it’s been successful in those places. Mixed, it’s all going to be mixed.
So some housing built by us, some by the privates, sometimes a blended model, all at once, all at the same time.
Housing density seems like a dirty word…
There are a few parts to it. If you break down people who are opposed to our plans, you’ve got some who are like, ‘I don't want change – I understand your concern about housing, but I'm concerned about my street’. So we're not going to get them. There’s another group who think that the problems are compelling and something needs to be done, but when you say to them, we'll look at density in Sydney, and they go, this sounds terrible. Density looks kind of crap – they're the people we've got to convince that you can do density well, that you attract young people, and it's integrated with retail, and there are open spaces.
If you’re putting a lot of the development in private developers’ hands, how are you going to ensure quality? Especially because we’ve seen a lot of serious quality issues in Sydney in recent times.
David Chandler [the NSW Building Commissioner, who is the new regulator of the building industry in NSW, overseeing policy, inspections, compliance, licensing and complaints to ensure confidence in residential building quality] has played a big part in that. He's a strong cop on the beat, he’s got unprecedented powers. I've had builders scream about him and say it’s outrageous what he's doing. And then I've got other builders who go, ‘he's the best thing that happened to the industry in 100 years’ – because we needed someone to push out some of the shonky builders and give people confidence. We need to communicate what this looks like, give the public confidence about how we're going to build it, we're going to do it responsibly.
The second part of it is economic. Banks require a certain number to be sold off the plan prior to construction. And confidence in these buildings is really essential. Chandler is essential in the economics of this, because he's making a big difference [to construction quality and confidence in it]. There’s already a public acknowledgement that there’s a pre-Chandler and a post-Chandler period.
Once more homes are built, how do you get people out of them, to experience community? Obviously the couch is becoming a more attractive place for people to be – you can work from home, experience life through a screen and get everything delivered. At Time Out we fight the war on the couch to get people out experiencing their cities. How do you create community around these new developments?
To start with, it’s about changing the laws around live venues, to stop locals who move in after a pub or club’s been there for 100 years from closing it down. There are a tonne of changes we've introduced, really practical measures, to boost Sydney’s 24-hour economy]. We were a little bit nervous, expecting a backlash, but the exact opposite happened – the response was, ‘This is exactly what we need’. I’m sure you know the reforms [Editor’s note: read a simple explanation of the six reforms, here]. They include, you can't close the venue based on a single noise complaint. The order of occupancy counts – so if the live music venue has been there for 20 years and the resident only moved in two years ago. Making outdoor dining permanent just made a massive difference. The two hours of extra opening time for live venues. And the lockout laws are removed. And then young people are the people that patronise and open establishments that create the culture of the city. And again, that comes back to keeping them here in Sydney, rather than them moving away.
We don't have the numbers yet, but we've got some exciting news coming up about the number of live music venues opening – we envisage a city that has Taylor Swift, but also great local talent, great music, lots of young people, and then also mid-tier venues for the likes of Noah Kahan and other acts that want to come out here. This will all work if we have young people in your community. If you don’t have them, it won’t.
Why is nightlife so important?
It's important because people's work habits change. I think the wowser-ism idea of everyone should be tucked into bed at nine o'clock – and that people don't make good decisions and shouldn't be out after midnight – is going and gone, and it’s quite generational. That's moving out. So you have to have places that are open and safe, after hours, with good public transport – we've got a long way to go there, but we've made headway.
The public transport issue is a big one for me – working for Time Out, I'm out a lot at night, and if I’m out a bit later, it can be a challenge getting home. Will metro trains even help with that?
They will, we can operate them on different cycles, but they're very expensive, so we need to get value for money out of it. That Metro West spine – which starts at Hunter Street and heads west out to Parramatta and into Westmead – runs through an exciting part of Sydney. Canada Bay, Five Dock vibe and then into Camellia. We've got an MOU with the Australian Turf Club for Rosehill Racecourse, to turn the race course into up to 25,000 homes and a school, also with a station. So then, all of a sudden, you’ve got this Metro line – ten minutes to the CBD that way, seven minutes out to Parramatta that way. Yeah, I think people are going to be amazed after I'm gone about what grows up along there. And we’re working on the density targets along there so that we get it right. This will provide rapid public transport through a really cool part of Sydney. You've got the river on the left bank, public transport in the middle, a lot of houses and open space. That part of Sydney is going to mature in the years ahead. And the most important thing is we're doing it right – starting with public transport. We're not opening a tonne of housing and going, ‘What's missing here? Yeah, I know, a train.’
And what are the timelines on that?
The last prediction was 2032 – but you should see it, it's awesome. It's amazing the amount of progress they've made already. It's phenomenal.
All this housing density could lead to even worse traffic congestion, though…
Well, there's been $40 to $60 billion being put into roads in Sydney. They're toll roads, and they're expensive, but they've been built. And, secondly, that's why we're building on top of metro lines. Not everyone will get metros everywhere.
But both ourselves and the previous government are putting the largest amount of money in public transport in the shortest period of time in the history of the state of New South Wales – we’re talking about brand-new rail lines from the city to the west to the northwest, underneath to the southwest. And we've got to use it – there would not be a city in the world that would put that much capital into brand-new public transport infrastructure without knowing you also need to get housing built around it so that people can get down and get onto public transport.
And with all this high-density housing, what about green space?
In many respects, if you can consolidate land, you can have more green space. And the government being the planner in some of these areas is important. We're going to get our own town planners in to design a suburb, and they're good planners: they know what amenity is, they know people need green space and open spaces. They need to be able to throw a frisbee or walk their dog. And that’s one of the reasons why I made the decision, in one of the most dense parts of Sydney, where there is the most number of people in a small space – around Zetland – to take the golf course and return it to public land. We are making decisions, taking into consideration the fact that because there's going to be density, there needs to be public space – not quarter-acre blocks everywhere. Public spaces.
We are building the foundations for a city that people can actually live in – more housing, more green space, a massive investment in public transport, housing on top of the public transport. And if we get those fundamentals right, I think a whole range of interesting things can happen in the city. If you get it wrong, the place atrophies.
Now, I'm going to ask about some of your personal favourite things...
Favourite band?
My favourite band of all time is Radiohead. But I went and saw Noah Kahan a couple of weeks ago, and he was great – and I didn't see Taylor Swift.
I don't think you get much chance to go out for your job – but when you do, where are your favourite areas to go?
I love our national parks. Yeah, like I love them. I've lived overseas before and travelled around. There wouldn't be many places in the whole world that are effectively surrounded by a national park. If you come into Sydney from any direction, you can walk through pristine wilderness, and then you hit this massive metropolitan Sydney city. If you live here, you're pretty close to pristine wilderness that’s protected. So I do a lot of hiking. I go to the beach and surf, and go to bushwalks once every school holidays. We get our three kids, make sure they don’t take their phone, and go bushwalking. There are only a-half-dozen cities in the whole world where you can do that.
And what’s your ideal night out?
Not working. Hanging out with my wife. An ideal day would be: Get up early. Go to the beach. Go for a surf, Cronulla is where I go most. Go and get into the bush with the kids. Then dump the kids, go for a drink with my wife – though, I don't drink alcohol – probably in the city somewhere, and then meet friends for dinner. Then, I hate to say this, but bed early.
Any favourite dinner spot?
I like a lot of things, but Malaysian is my favourite.
Yum, I had Malaysian last night.
Where did you go?
A new place in Marrickville, it’s called Omela Café. It’s really good and really cheap.
And now that you’ve removed the concert cap at Moore Park, who would you most like to see there?
Actually, my boys had Beyoncé's Coachella Netflix thing on the other day, so that would be pretty good – I don't know, is she still touring?