The public housing residents of Waterloo, New South Wales, draw on two incidents to describe their relationship with their landlord. The first is the use of the phrase ‘I am excited’ opening a letter announcing the demolition of their homes. The second is the decision to buy Homebrand sausages, Homebrand white bread and Homebrand tomato sauce for a barbecue ‘consulting’ public housing residents about this demolition.

Sometimes the incidental things are the most revelatory. The government’s choices around this decision—the decision to announce it to residents at the same time as to the general public, the use of the phrase ‘I am excited’, the Homebrand sausages—confirmed for residents their suspicions about the government’s view of them as public tenants. They have long felt they are seen as the malingering tenants of a reluctant-but-benevolent landlord, and for more than a decade have been waiting to hear that their time is up.