For the life of me, I can't understand why housing blocks can't be leased out by Aboriginal land-holding bodies, to the current 'tenants', so that they can buy the houses on the land and henceforth be responsible for them.

The terms of a lease can be specified, so that the block can be leased only by someone from that community, and used only for domestic purposes.

Down the track, once this initiative has been tried out, perhaps groups from the community - or even individuals - could apply for some forms of leasehold for enterprises, like vegetable gardens, orchards, chook-yards, or a paddock for milk-cows.

It's not rocket science.

Or are land-holding bodies deliberately trying to drive people off their lands by making living conditions that much more unbearable, and enterprise impossible ?

So are those bodies (horror !) assimilationist ?!

Joe,
In the communities I visit the locals aren't allowed to build their own home. The Government builds expensive houses on peoples' land & then forces them to pay rent.
Building your own home would negate the bureaucrat hangers-on who engage Dollar guzzling consultants who in turn engage mediocre contractors to build houses which inevitably need repairing in a few years & so the bandwagon rolls on.
Those locals who do have the go in them get disillusioned & just comply.
When someone with no idea & just corrupt keeps overruling you it's not worth the hassles to stand up against it.

I make these comments having lived, been educated and worked in central Australia. Although I no longer live there I do return from time to time to visit family. I have worked for an aboriginal enterprise and as a consequence have been exposed to places such as Yuendumu, Papunya, Areyonga and Docker River to mention a few. I have also lived or spent time at Tennant Creek, Ti Tree, Yallara, Darwin and the top end. I have a deep respect for the majority of people from a diverse range of backgrounds that I have met in these places.

Firstly, I believe that it is a right that everyone should have shelter even if an individual does not have the “financial means to buy (or build)”. Clearly it’s more desirable if individuals are able to own and build their own residence. It is virtually impossible when individuals have been forced, have no choice or are born into a ghetto be it in the middle of a city, on the outskirts of a town or in a remote part of this vast country. This is further compounded when there is poor education, health and nothing to do. Put anyone in any of these situations and the result will be the same.

Until all Australians whatever their location or circumstances are able to access food, shelter, health and education, the right to “ownership to their own castle” is a mute point. Australians that find themselves in these situations must be allowed and/or assisted to develop self determination themselves, that counteracts the bureaucrats, politicians, god bothers, manipulative yella fellas and do gooders.

The root of the issue is that we treat the first Australians differently. This is I believe is wrong and segregates our community. More help should go to the greatest need, because it is needed and for no other reason.

We need more people like Beth Price.

Thanks Producer,

This might sound really naive :)

Here's a much cheaper alternative for the federal government: buy up properties in towns, retain the ownership of the land that houses are on (so deduct a land-value cost from the total price) and offer the blocks as 99-year leases (like in Canberra) to Aboriginal people who are prepared to pay for the houses on those blocks, i.e. to OWN the houses, pay them off, pay for their own repairs, etc., just like other people do.

For example, if you check out http://www.realestate.com.au/buy , for, say, Tennant Creek, there are decent houses for sale there in the $ 250-350,000. Land seems to cost around $ 50,000 for a house-block, so the cost of the houses is around $ 200-300,000. On that basis, house-only costs can be as low as $150,000 for what is currently available.

Surely that beats $ 500,000 out in the sticks, replaced every seven years ?

Gary Johns has a point when he queries why houses should be built in settlements where there is never any likelihood of work. So as a logical corollary, why not seek out houses for Indigenous people who want to work, in nearby towns ? Offer them for sale, i.e. the house only, while the land itself is leased from a public housing body ? And yes, the householder paying annual leasehold fees equivalent to local council rates ?

Now: do Indigenous people in the NT get royalties, or not ? And in the region of $ 5-10,000 per person per year, i.e. enough to pay off a house on a leasehold block ?

Are royalties individualised, or not ? Or do they accrue to the Land Councils ? If so, why can't the Land Councils allocate funds for housing on a per capita basis, out of its accrued funds ?

And wouldn't it be just that little bit more sensible for relevant federal bodies to provide housing in locations where employment is more likely to be available ? Where kids can go to real schools and get a real education ?

Joe

The root of the issue is that we treat the first Australians differently.
Producer & Joe,
Both your posts are valid viewing them from a personal experience perspective.
The problem of the issue is that it is not of a single root. It's more like a mangrove. We can never solve the issue of basic racism because racism is a natural phenomenon in human behaviour. What we can do is to heavily penalise excessive racism as we should do with excessively feigned indignation exploitation. Most of us are fully aware of both symptoms & Law & Policy makers are screwing up very badly. We should punish them by voting them out at the first opportunity.
After all, it's not the hierarchies in either our nor the indigenous' community who cop the short end of the stick. It's the working class non-& indigenous who do. Let's not for a moment fool ourselves that loud indigenous & do-gooders actually care about their own. They don't. All their rhetoric would achieve zilch if it wasn't for the working man's tax dollar for them to squander.
As long as Governments permit consultants to be engaged by so-called regional councils at immoral cost to us, nothing will change. You'll all have a duty on saturday, put your integrity before your wants for the future for all of us unless of course you think everything's good now.
.

Thanks Individual,

If I were a Queenslander, I would be despairing about who to vote for this Saturday. After all, what is there ?

* the Labor Party, doing deals with

* the Greens;

* the Liberal-National Party, and

* Bob Katter's Party .

Which party has anything like hard-nosed, workable, no-nonsense, all-shoulders-to-the-wheel, policies which involve, and simultaneously enable, Indigenous people (even with a mix of carrots and sticks) in starting to build genuine self-determination, or at least move towards it ?

A party which demands that Indigenous people thoroughly spell out what they want - IF they want something from the rest of Australian society, in the context of what is sensible and realistic, and to stick to it - and are prepared to work towards it themselves, 'working white people out of their jobs', as we used to hear ? (Christ, I'd like to see that.) No more moving the goal-posts in the definition of what people want.

A party with the courage to say to Indigenous people, "We will stick by you, but you must do the bulk of the work of self-determination/sovereignty yourselves, since that's what it means" ?

Nobody is coming out of this with any medals so far.

Perhaps it is too much to ask. Is there a box on the ballot paper which allows you to tick:

* None of the above.

Best of luck,

Joe