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August 12, 2009
I have to admit that I don't really understand the basis for the Rudd Government's controversial indigenous housing policy. Why did they decide to support the linking of land tenure reform to the provision of basic services when they so strongly condemned this policy when Labor was in Opposition? Once in government they adopted a near identical plan to that of the Howard Government---a minimum 40-year lease over the land in exchange for housing. This is a complete reversal of position.
How come?
I appreciate that the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER), which was a response to the "Little Children are Sacred" Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse had bipartisan support. The Rudd Government does recognize that adequate housing is so fundamental to community health and safety that it has been willing to invest public funds in community housing. Overcrowding and the appalling state of housing in most communities impact upon the life chances of children and the wellbeing of communities generally.
As one clinician noted in a submission to the Senate Select committee on regional and remote Indigenous communities' inquiry:
I think it is vital that we work to insist on the supply of more housing and infrastructure as a meaningful and practical step for resolving the problems in the bush. If you are any parent white or black living in a household of 20 other people with limited sanitation facilities and income then your ability to protect your child from the ravages of recurrent strep infections, rheumatic fever, kidney disease, ear infections, trachoma, intestinal parasites, dental caries, anaemia, malnutrition or sexual predators is severely compromised whether you are drug and alcohol affected or not. If you have no where else to go and no one to offer reliable long-term assistance or protection what choice do you have but to continue to put up with it? As important as we doctors like to think we are, most of the major health advantages in our dominant culture have actually been achieved by plumbers, carpenters, civil engineers and teachers.
Both the NTER Review and the Senate Select committee on regional and remote Indigenous communities recent Second report 2009 understand that the original intention of the compulsory five year leases was to enable urgent maintenance and upgrading of existing housing and infrastructure with a longer term objective to make future funds for Aboriginal housing dependent on the grant of a long-term lease by the Aboriginal owners to the Commonwealth, thereby securing control over the housing and infrastructure assets.
However, funding for new housing was not part of the NTER. Hence the Commonwealth government's Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP), which is a partnership between the Commonwealth government and the Northern Territory government and is intended to deliver around 750 new houses including new subdivisions, demolition of 230 uninhabitable houses, 500 housing upgrades, essential infrastructure to support new houses and improvements to living conditions in town camps. The Commonwealth government has stated that appropriate land tenure arrangements must be in place before construction can commence.
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