COMMUNITY
Education and housing are keys to a thriving West by Christine Rau
Western Sydney, this vast, diverse and ever-evolving region is still too often painted with tired clichés: dole bludging, drug addled, badly educated criminals and wayward youth. Or, at best, cleaners and tradies.
From The Daily Telegraph’ s infamous 1997 Class We Failed front page, to SBS’ s Struggle Street documentaries( 2015 – 2019), and this year’ s headlines about“ postcode wars” in Mount Druitt and Doonside, media portrayals often mix elements of truth with heavy doses of sensationalism.
They rarely reflect the daily reality for the millions who call the West home, residents of Australia’ s third-largest economy, whose lives are far less dramatic and far more ordinary.
“ Sydney is such a strange city,” says Jon Owen, pastor and CEO of the Wayside Chapel, who spent a decade in Bidwill with his young family working as a youth social worker.
“ People who live in the East have names for those in the North, South and West, and vice versa. These are powerful stories. In many ways, Sydney is a city divided by its geography and river systems. It’ s separated in a way that Melbourne isn’ t. Sydney is so segregated. Its road system was built on old goat tracks by rivers, so we form impressions of each other that often aren’ t
Jon Owen was a youth worker at Bidwill High School.
Bidwill Campus, Chifley College.
very positive.” Despite the stereotypes, Owen says Western Sydney offers strong educational opportunities, even if public schools remain underfunded. The expansion of Western Sydney University and more flexible tertiary pathways have also improved access.
As a youth worker at Bidwill High, Owen helped run leadership and mentoring programs that encouraged students to see beyond limitations. They could imagine futures as artists instead of just graphic designers, or managers rather than factory hands. He and his wife Lisa, a counsellor in women’ s prisons, opened their Chestnut Crescent home to HSC students whose family lives were too unstable for study.
“ Often the student would be the first in their family to complete the HSC,” he recalls.
“ It was a great source of pride for families who didn’ t always have the skills to support their kids through it. We worked closely with Bidwill High, an amazing school with dedicated teachers.”
One of those students was George Filipec, now customer services manager at Blacktown Workers Club. A Bidwill High graduate from the early 1990s, he remembers his upbringing, with a younger sister and single mum, as filled with friendships, outdoor adventures and little drama.
“ Pretty much everyone did the right thing,” George says.
“ We were competitive in sport and the HSC, we hung around with friends, caught the bus to the movies, or took the ferry to
Mount Druitt 1961-1970. Courtesy Blacktown Library.
Manly. We played football, soccer, cricket and everyone got on. The teachers cared about us.”
But outside the community, Owen says, the stigma was palpable.
“ People are surprised when I tell them the hardest thing about living in the West was how judgmental outsiders can be,” he says.“ One young woman doing a teaching degree at Sydney Uni told me her classmates joked,‘ Oh, have all your cousins got two heads?’ She became so anxious about leaving her neighbourhood. She’ d say,‘ Why am I doing this when my community knows and loves me? I’ m trying to better my life, but all I get is judgement and scorn.’”
Owen recalls her saying,“ Every day I had to fight the urge not to get on that train.”
“ She pushed through,” he says,“ but for everyone like her, there are ten who drop out. The cognitive dissonance of trying to assimilate into a culture that doesn’ t accept you while rejecting the one that raised you is incredibly hard. Many succeed, but they’ ll often say,‘ Yeah, it cost me my family.’ My hope is that more young people won’ t have to face that choice.”
Owen believes real progress depends on practical, community-led investment in education and housing, not“ top-down saviour” interventions.
“ If you gave people housing stability, if long-term tenants could own their homes, you’ d see intergenerational change immediately,” he says.
“ We should go to everyone who’ s lived in housing commission in Campbelltown or Mount Druitt for 30 years and say,‘ Your next payment is your last one.’”
One challenge is that many public housing lots in areas like Bidwill are held under“ superleases” covering entire streets rather than individual properties. Even so, Owen supports mixed-tenure development,‘ salt and peppering’, provided it’ s close to infrastructure, transport, education and employment hubs.
“ What amazes me is how quickly practical support can change things,” he says.
“ My best friend is illiterate, but he fought to raise his kids. His son finished Year 12, got a diploma and now works as a youth worker, and he’ s talking about university. In twenty years, that family went from functional illiteracy to tertiary aspirations. His son says he wants to be Prime Minister.
“ I asked him,‘ Why set your sights so low?’”
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