Proposed housing reforms target Aboriginal Territorians

Plans, announced recently by Housing Minister Steve Edgington, include a range of actions to address tenancy issues, with booting people out of their homes at the top of the list.

The reforms were made without any stakeholder consultation and do not address the failures of successive governments to fix the public housing system across the Northern Territory.

The NT Government has failed to implement adequate tenancy management plans that would proactively assist public housing tenants to look after their homes, manage disruptive behaviours, and prevent tenants from falling into debt spirals.

Under the guise of debt recovery, public housing tenants are being made to take the fall for the fiasco that conflicts with its Closing the Gap commitments.

The Northern Territory already has the highest rate of homelessness in Australia. Turning hundreds of people out onto our streets will lead to an unmanageable surge that will entrench disadvantage while children, people with disability, and those suffering from chronic diseases will caught in the wake.

The reforms will serve only to weaponise homelessness and compound poverty. Introducing a cyclical repairs and preventative maintenance cycle, addressing unfair practices in the Remote Rent Framework, and supporting public housing tenants in adequate housing would achieve far better outcomes than the punitive approach adopted by the NT Government.

Quotes attributable to NLC Chair Matthew Ryan:

“Safe, secure, affordable housing is a fundamental human right and it is the responsibility of the NT Government to create an effective, efficient housing system.

“We know these heartless measures will not be effective, and will not help to build a Territory that is fair and inclusive. There will be more homelessness and more of our people locked up.

“We can’t sit back and watch this debacle unfold any longer because lives are at stake.

“Government after government has continued to fail Aboriginal people across all areas, and it has to stop right here.

“The current NT Government needs to pull up right now, go back to the drawing board and start working in genuine partnership with us, like they said they would.”