Santa Teresa decision could cost NT Government tens of millions

A LEGAL stoush over remote housing could cost the NT Government millions as litigants plan a ‘wave’ of further claims

A legal stoush over remote housing could end up costing the Territory Government tens of millions of dollars as the Santa Teresa community’s backers prepare for a “wave” of further litigation. Pictured: Santa Teresa residents Mark Alice and his wife Francesca Williams

A LEGAL stoush over remote housing could end up costing the Territory Government tens of millions of dollars as the Santa Teresa community’s backers prepare for a “wave” of further litigation.

Residents of the township outside Alice Springs took the Government to the NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week for failing to provide adequate maintenance on their houses, which are administered under a remote housing scheme.

The Government countersued for unpaid rent but the litigants say that tack was rejected by NTCAT on the basis that the Government had no formal policy which entitled it to collect the rent in the first place.

Isabelle Reinecke, executive director of the Grata Fund, which financially backed the court action, said that meant rental payments collected from all the NT’s 72 remote communities were potentially invalid.

“The tribunal chucked out their entire counter suit because they were not able to produce evidence of any policy that enabled them to collect remote rent at all,” she said.

“What it effectively does mean is that the Government doesn’t have a policy for collecting remote rent from about 57,000 people across the Territory.

“It won’t happen automatically but what the Grata Fund is planning to do is bring a wave of similar litigation that will enable people to claim that compensation.”

Ms Reinecke said it beggared belief that the Government “don’t even have a policy basis to be claiming something as significant as remote rent”.

“On the one hand it was about gaining justice for this community but really what this case has shown is that for all the Government’s change of rhetoric over housing with the Labor Party in power, the reality on the ground is really, really bad and housing is just a shemozzle,” she said.

Housing Minister Gerry McCarthy was contacted for comment.