Australia’s Silent Housing Crisis – Northern Territory Homelands

A guest post by Nathan Evans*

The Northern Territory Homelands Movement began in the 1970s and was a visible demonstration of Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory asserting their rights to determine their lives on their traditional lands. 

When first established, these homelands received almost no government services.  The construction of physical infrastructure was left to Aboriginal people themselves. Water was carried in buckets. Corrugated iron sheets were trucked overland. Airstrips and roads were cleared by hand, toilets were dug and over time, solar power and diesel generator hybrid power systems introduced.

Elders today talk proudly of their hard work.  How they built their own communities with the understanding that governments would recognise and support this hard work and commitment in good faith.

The Homelands Movement arose as people became increasingly disillusioned with living in the established centralised communities and former mission settlements – many of which are established on another clan nation’s country.  There was a growing concern among Elders with the conditions that centralised life was providing families.

In 1973, the Whitlam Government, through the then Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA) created ‘Establishment Grants’ of up to $10,000 for ‘groups with a commitment to moving to homelands centres.’  Establishment Grants enabled basic facilities and physical infrastructure and were the first funding arrangements for Aboriginal people who wished to return and live on their estates.

In 1987, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs tabled a broad-ranging investigation into homelands.  Entitled, Return to Country: The Aboriginal Homelands Movement in Australia (known as the Blanchard Report), the paper formally recognised the importance of homelands across remote Australia.  The Blanchard Report made 58 recommendations to improve the economic security and viability of homelands and service provision.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) was established as an independent statutory authority in 1990, following legislation passed by the Hawke government in 1989. ATSIC’s primary roles were to design and monitor programs, develop policy proposals, advise the minister and coordinate activities at all levels of government.  Part of this remit included funding homelands.

ATSIC funds were provided to Homelands Service Providers (known then as Outstation Resource Organisations) for housing and essential infrastructure through the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program (CHIP) and for employment and economic development through the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) program. CDEP was (and still is) regarded by many across remote Australia as an effective employment program. 

By 2003, there were 35,000 Aboriginal people employed by 270 remote organisations.  CDEP sustained employment in remote areas with limited economy, the likes of which have not been since ATSIC was abolished.  CDEP was subsequently transferred to the mainstream Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (2001–2007) which made it almost impossible to access by homelands residents.

On 28 May 2004, the Howard Government introduced legislation into the Federal Parliament to abolish ATSIC. The Bill passed both houses of Parliament in 2005 (the then Labor Opposition had also announced it would abolish ATSIC if elected). ATSIC was formally abolished at midnight on 24 March 2005.

By mid-2007, both the Australian and Northern Territory governments were developing a large-scale Aboriginal remote housing program.  The program, to be known as the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) saw $647 million allocated to construct over 750 houses across the 73 communities. Homelands were out of scope.

The proviso of the Commonwealth’s $647 million was that none of the federal funds were to be spent on new housing in homelands.  Homelands were off the table.

Funding for homelands continued to be provided by the Commonwealth through the Stronger Futures in the NT National Partnership Agreement (Stronger Futures) until 2015.  In 2015, the then Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party government under Adam Giles, in a deal with the Commonwealth, agreed to take full responsibility for the delivery of municipal and essential services to homelands in exchange for a $155 million cash payment of the remaining municipal and essential services component of Stronger Futures.  This saw the Commonwealth relinquish all responsibility for homelands and saw the Northern Territory take full responsibility for homelands.

Homelands’ dwellings are not fungible. Housing on homelands cannot be bought and sold, they are not privately owned and are not managed as public housing but are communally owned structures located on Aboriginal land trusts under the Commonwealth Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA). The land trusts themselves are managed by the four Land Councils, while the provision of municipal and essential services and repairs and maintenance continue to be provided by NTG-funded homelands organisations. 

With the nation in the grips of a housing crisis, it is estimated 10,000 Aboriginal people across Northern Territory homelands have been living in a silent and largely invisible housing crisis for almost a decade – no new housing on homelands has been constructed since at least 2015.  The housing that does exist on homelands is dilapidated, energy inefficient (hot boxes in the desert & rusting out on the coast) and in many cases beyond economic repair, that is, not worth fixing and cheaper to knock down and rebuild.

The Northern Territory’s homelessness rates are a staggering 12 times the national average. Pervasive chronic overcrowding (itself a form of homelessness) amongst a
rapidly-growing Aboriginal population across the remote bush electorates should provide the impetus for some serious homelands housing policy design.

The 2024 NT general election provides an opportunity for the next NT government to action its obligations under Closing the Gap – to improve housing outcomes for the 10,000 Aboriginal citizens who live across homelands and commit to a new housing for homelands program. 

Indeed, the remote voters in those bush electorates with homelands may well be the ones to cast the deciding vote.

* Nathan Evans is the Managing Director at Aboriginal Housing NT (AHNT). He has lived and worked across the Top End of the NT and Western Australia since the late 1990s

Photo: supplied