Breaking the Mount Druitt Stigma
In the area of Western Sydney, there is a suburb called Mount Druitt. If you have heard of Mount Druitt, you probably have not heard good things about the suburb and if you have not heard of it, I am here to tell you that is not as bad as it is believed to be. This bad perception of this area is known as a stigma, better defined as a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person; and there is definitely one surrounding Mount Druitt. This text will argue against the stigma around Mount Druitt, perpetuated mainly by the media.
First, some basic information about Mount Druitt. It is located 43 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Blacktown, and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. It is a very multicultural suburb as in 2001, the City of Blacktown Social Plan identified that a high portion of Mount Druitt residents are migrants from non-English speaking nations, and that they tend to work in blue collar jobs. This is still the case today as shown by a census in 2011 conducted by Australian Bureau of Statistics. One key finding shows that 42% of Mount Druitt’s 15,794 residents were born in Australia, compared to the national average of 70%, with 12.0% born in the Philippines, 4.4% from Iraq and 4.2% from Pakistan. They also found that the most common occupation categories were, in fact, blue collar jobs with clerical at 17%, machinery operators at 15%, labourers at 15% and tradespeople at 13%. Despite these facts, the media still chooses to show Mount Druitt in an unkind light.
Mount Druitt is portrayed in the media as a kind of redneck or Bogan area in terms as it seems as if Mount Druitt is a poor suburb with dumb, criminal inhabitants. One example was in a 1996 Daily Telegraph article. The Year 12 students at Mount Druitt High School were reported to have failed the Higher School Certificate. After this story was published, the Australian Press Council received a number of complaints regarding the article, mainly due to the fact that in the HSC, there is not a system of awarding pass and fail marks. As a result, a class action for defamation was won against the publishers and the publishers issued a retraction and apology (Branagan 2006). This highlights one of the many negative media portrayals of Mount Druitt; a more recent one was the SBS documentary ‘Struggle Street’ (2015).
Struggle Street (2015) was a 3-part SBS documentary that aired in May 2015 displaying the lives of those living in socially-disadvantaged areas of Western Sydney. The intent of the series was stated by KEO Films (2015), the production company behind the project, on their website:
‘In this proposed 3-part observational documentary series, to be filmed over a 6-month period, we’ll feature the voices and stories of people living on the outskirts of Sydney, in some of our most socially-disadvantaged communities. We’ll highlight the enormous challenges they face being born into generational disadvantage, and then being blamed by the system for their lack of progress. …And rather than being an exercise in voyeurism, or a fleeting judgemental report, this extended insight into the lives of our subjects will — we hope — provoke not just a change in public perception, but a debate about the direction of public policy as well.’
Part one of the documentary was the most watched show that night [6/5/15], with 1.3 million watching, and it sparked massive debates about whether the intent was true, or if it was just more slander against Western suburbs, including Mount Druitt. SBS reporter Jessica Rich (2015) visited Mt Druitt on the 7/5/15 and said ‘the reaction on the ground was mixed. Some people maintained it unfairly tainted the whole community while many thought it accurately highlighted the plight of the disadvantaged’. While the reaction there was mixed, many could see how unjust it was by showing only the worst of the area, the Mayor of Blacktown even called it ‘poverty porn’ (ABC 2015) with the Western Sydney locals featured in it even considering legal actions against the producers (Auerbach 2015). This stigma constructed by the media is an exaggerated, oversimplified view of Mount Druitt as it is not as bad as it seems.
Mount Druitt used to be one of the poorest suburbs in Sydney (Head 1999) and the state of New South Wales, however, more recent data has shown that it no longer is. An 2011 Australia Bureau of Statistics showed that in Mount Druitt: 12.6% of households had a weekly income in the range of $1500–$1999, compared to 11.3% across the region of Greater Sydney. One possible reason contributing to this improvement could be that Mount Druitt is a priority location in the Building Stronger Communities. The BSC strategy is an innovative approach to the regeneration of social housing estates in NSW. The program aims to build stronger, more vibrant and supportive communities, where people can live in safety, receive the support services they need and access education, training and employment opportunities (NSW Government 2011). Mount Druitt also has several services to try and tackle issues in the community, such as mental health in Men.
The shed in Mount Druitt is a program with the purpose of being a pathway for fragile and wounded men and their families to take control of their lives. It even states in its aims that the Mt. Druitt community is ‘often pathologised by the media in a poor light’ (MacDonald & Welsh 2012). Working towards helping solve issues in the community is not something highlighted in the media about Mount Druitt and is just one of the many ways Mount Druitt differs from the surrounding stigma.
Mount Druitt has become another victim of media’s common habit of ‘demonising’, but the facts are that this is not so. Breaking the stigma is a change that needs to happen soon, and with the public being informed of the positives of the area, I believed this can be achieved.
Ben Fuller
References:
ABC. 2015. Struggle Street: Garbage truck protest against SBS ‘poverty porn’ documentary. Accessed 4/6/2015
Aubusson, Kate. 2015. Mt Druitt community leaders hurt, angry and feeling sick after Struggle Street documentary. Sydney Morning Herald. Accessed 4/6/2015
Auerbach, T. 2015. Struggle Street: Featured Western Sydney locals set to sue SBS over their portrayal. The Daily Telegraph. Accessed 4/6/2015
Australian Bureau of Statistics. 31/10/2012. Mount Druitt (State Suburb). 2011 Census QuickStats. Accessed 4/6/2015
Australian Press Council, Adjudication No.910, AustLII.
Branagan, L. 2/10/2005. Class Act — No Longer Failures (READIO TRANSCRIPT (HTML)). ABC Radio National. Accessed 4/6/2015
Head, M. 12/6/1999. Australia’s golden age of prosperity… and poverty. World Socialist Website. Accessed 4/6/2015
McDonald, J. & Welsh, R. 2012. The Shed in Mt Druitt: Addressing the Social Determinants of Male Health and Illness. Men’s Health Information and Resource Centre (MHIRC). ISBN: 1–74108–260–9
NSW Government. 2011. Mount Druitt Building Stronger Communities. Accessed 4/6/2015
NSW Teachers Federation. 2006. Telegraph apologises to Mount Druitt students. Accessed 4/6/2015
SBS. 6/5/2015. SBS series Struggle Street sparks debate in Mt Druitt. Accessed 4/6/2015
Struggle Street. 2015. keofilms.com.au.
WESTIR Ltd (2003). The 2001 City of Blacktown Social Plan (PDF). City of Blacktown. Accessed 4/6/2015
