A Brief History

Abstract

An outbreak of bubonic plague in Millers Point at the turn of the 20th century resulted in the NSW government taking over the wharves and much of the housing in Millers Point. After worker protests in 1908, the Sydney Harbour Trust, the government body created to administer Millers Point and the ports, built around 200 more homes in the area for workers employed on the waterfront. A key feature of Millers Point was the inter-generational transfer of property. This aspect, combined with a common history and strong trade union membership, continued into the mid-1980s and created the basis for strong social ties and sense of community. The advent of containerisation and the eventual closing of the wharves in the 1970s and 1980s heralded the end of the strong link with the waterfront. Also, the inter-generational transfer of the homes was curtailed in the mid-1980s. In 1970, the NSW government unveiled a plan to demolish most of the 19th century buildings in The Rocks, Sydney’s oldest area, and replace them with high rise buildings. The greens bans were put in place by the NSW Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) and involved preventing its members from participating in any activity in The Rocks area that involved the destruction of historic buildings. The Sirius apartment block (79 apartments) opened in 1980 and its construction was part of the NSW government’s agreement with the BLF) to rescind the green bans.