Indigenous reform must include home ownership

Indigenous leader Peter Yu makes a valid point about why government involvement in remote community building misses the mark. Why, he asks, in 50 years of investing in remote area housing don’t we have Aboriginal plumbers and electricians rather than a lot of public servants? This is exactly the sort of conversation that must be had in the wake of the failed voice to parliament referendum. As Janet Albrechtsen observed this week, the referendum can be seen as a high-water mark of a philosophy of grievance and separatism, and its comprehensive rejection gives us the chance to start again with a positive and empowering approach to Indigenous affairs.

Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has been leading the charge in public. But the flowering of a new type of Indigenous community being explored by the leaders of Bidyadanga, a former Catholic mission 2000km northeast of Perth, is a good place to start on the ground.

As Indigenous affairs correspondent Paige Taylor reports on Saturday, the largest remote Indigenous community in Western Australia is set on becoming a town. The first step is a system of land tenure that gives a sense of ownership to residents so they can plan their lives with certainty. As things stand, Aboriginal people in remote Australia are destined to be renters for life because houses are state-owned and on land tied up in complex systems of communal title. This can have perverse outcomes, such as not allowing residents to move to gain skills because they will lose rights to housing that can be difficult to regain.

Home ownership is seen as the first step to attracting private investment into Bidyadanga. This could lead to jobs and skilled workers and higher standards for utilities such as water and sewerage that most Australian towns simply take for granted. Traditional owners in Bidyadanga have negotiated with the state government to change land tenure for the purpose of inviting investors to establish businesses that create jobs, paving the way for future home ownership.

The seeds of disruption were planted by former WA Liberal premier Colin Barnett in 2014 and taken up by prime minister Tony Abbott. Two decades later, federal Northern Australia Minister Madeleine King says the Albanese government is interested in finally tackling the home ownership dilemma. She is keen to build on reforms introduced by Ben Wyatt when he was WA treasurer and Aboriginal affairs minister in response to Malcolm Turnbull pulling federal funding for remote housing. Mr Wyatt says Bidyadanga has the scale and access to mainstream economies that make it ideal to roll out the reform. Ms King is right to say that the goal of home ownership is just as important for First Nations Australians as everybody else. She is considering allowing the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to invest in remote housing projects for commercial gain. The aim would be to allow residents effectively to become homeowners, making long-term lease payments that deliver a profit to NAIF.

This is a good start. Whether the NAIF is the right vehicle needs to be assessed. And there must be some doubt about whether government-built remote housing could ever be sold at a profit. The genius in the Bidyadanga plan is that it is a community ambition for greater involvement in the real economy. This is what must be encouraged and not smothered by another wave of public servants eager to tell them how it must be done.