Coalition signals a return to funding remote housing

The Coalition has flagged it will again help states pay for housing in some remote Aboriginal communities.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Coalition has flagged it will again help states pay for housing in some remote Aboriginal communities, a conditional commitment that could guarantee the future of settlements where up to half of all dwellings have been condemned.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Coalition’s spokes­woman on Indigenous affairs, says a future Coalition government would again invest in remote communities “where we are going to see practical outcomes”.

“The Coalition is committed to addressing Indigenous disadvantage on the basis of need rather than race,” Senator Nampijinpa Price told The Australian.

“We know there is a need for housing in remote areas, and if Australia does choose a Coalition government at the next election, we would be looking to work with the states and territories to ensure we invest in places where we are going to see return on investment.

“That is, where we are going to see practical outcomes, not just investment in an Indigenous community for the sake of it.”

There has been deepening concern about overcrowding and deteriorating infrastructure in hundreds of remote Aboriginal communities outside the Northern Territory – most in Western Australia and Queensland – since 2014. That is when the Abbott government handed the states permanent responsibility to provide services such as power, water and roads in remote communities. Then, four years later, the ­Coalition government stopped contributing to housing in remote communities in all states.

Despite repeated efforts from the states, successive federal governments – including the Albanese government – have not reinstated commonwealth funding for remote Aboriginal housing in any state. Successive governments have continued to fund NT communities.

In June, the Albanese government announced the largest ever remote housing investment in the Territory. The $4bn, 10-year remote housing partnership agreement is designed to halve overcrowding in 73 Aboriginal communities across the NT.

That commitment has been lauded because of evidence that overcrowding sets children on the wrong path early, making them far more likely to get rheumatic heart disease or ear infections that make it difficult for them to hear and learn in class.

At Parnngurr on Martu land in the WA desert, overcrowding is rife and half of all houses have been independently assessed as fit for demolition. Parnngurr leaders are proud of results at the local school where children have begun passing NAPLAN and attendance is routinely above 90 per cent. They say their dry community is a sanctuary and many more Martu people want to live there than can be accommodated. They claim dozens of Martu families are stranded in the nearest town of Newman, where alcohol and violence is rife.