The Minns government’s far-reaching planning reforms – which respond to a severe housing shortage that’s on track to get worse – were always going to be contentious among community activists, local politicians and Sydneysiders more broadly. It’s a council election year, after all.

We all care about our neighbourhoods. Many of us – though not all – also care deeply about the welfare and functionality of the city as a whole. And these are significant policy changes which warrant rigorous debate.

A sign held by Canterbury Bankstown councillor Barbara Coorey at Tuesday’s rally against “Minns’ wrecking ball”.Credit: Michael Koziol

But that discussion should take place based on fact, and as the campaign against these reforms continues, it is stretching credibility in its claims and deploying inflammatory, scaremongering rhetoric that is unbecoming and, frankly, sad.

In the past 24 hours, Parramatta councillor Michelle Garrard warned Rosehill would turn into “a ghetto” if the racecourse was sold and developed for high-rise towers of 25,000 homes, while at a rally against what they called Premier Chris Minns’ “wrecking ball” outside parliament on Tuesday, Canterbury Bankstown councillor Barbara Coorey held a placard: “No to Campsie high rise ghetto”.

At a time when opponents of housing density are also demanding large cuts to immigration, the invocation of the loaded term “ghetto” is especially imprudent.

Now, both councillors say they use the term ghetto to refer to people living on top of each other in small apartments – or “substandard accommodation”, as Coorey said later – not to portray an urban slum populated by minority groups.

Be that as it may, the term does have those historical connotations. Even without any racial lens, “ghetto” depicts a sea of dirty, wretched souls who want for food and clean clothes. If that is how these elected representatives see their constituents who live in apartments, that is unfortunate.

It also reveals a logical inconsistency among the groups fighting these changes. Invariably, one reason they give for opposing projects by big developers is that they won’t deliver housing that is genuinely affordable. Both things cannot be true. They cannot simultaneously be luxury units for the rich and ghettos for the poor.