ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has unveiled a bold plan to solve the city’s homelessness problem.
Relocate the city’s tent-dwelling population to the “cool” and “up and coming” locality of Chinderah. A beach-adjacent Xanadu just over the New South Wales border.
Speaking to the media this morning, Schrinner explained that this visionary move was about giving people a fresh start while also reducing Brisbane’s growing homelessness crisis.
“It’s a obviously win-win,” he said.
“They get a new place to live, and we can return our parks to the picnicking public. Chinderah is a vibrant place full of opportunities. We will even pay the 50 cents to send them there. They have big paddocks for their tents, service stations with toilets and food. Beaches for washing. I might just give up this Mayor bullshit and join them!”
The homelessness situation in Brisbane has reached crisis levels, with rental vacancy rates hitting record lows and hundreds of people now forced to set up tents across the city
Schrinner’s proposal to ship them across the border is being seen by some unproductive leaners as more of a problem displacement than a solution.
“It’s not about passing the buck,” Schrinner insisted.
“Chinderah has everything these people need. Compared it Brisbane, there’s more for them down there. You know, the same people complaining about my plan where people that leaned on a shovel during the Brisbane Floods instead of using it to lift mud off some fat prick’s living floor in Coorporoo. Lifters and leaners. I’m a lifter. These tent people, leaners. That’s why they’re in a tent to begin with!”
“Unless they’re veterans, then I respectfully apologise.”
Residents of Brisbane’s tent cities are understandably less enthused.
“The Mayor says it’s a vibrant place, but all I’ve heard is that it’s the arse end of nowhere,” said one man from the makeshift camp outside Musgrave Park.
“It is nice down there but there’s no services in Northern NSW. Everyone knows that.”
Despite the skepticism, Schrinner has doubled down on his plan.
“It’s either this or we start turning these tents into ‘tiny homes,’ and I’m not building any of those. Not in this economy.”
More to come.
