Perceptive and heartfelt article, Sara,

Is there anywhere in the world where a public housing authority builds and rents out houses on land that it doesn't control (i.e. own or lease) ? And, in this case, who would be living in those houses (on land so brutally torn from the hands of Aboriginal people) but Aboriginal people ?

As for perpetual rent: urban Aboriginal people (the majority of the Aboriginal population) don't have access to land, they are not paid royalties, and mostly they have picked themselves up and are just getting on with living in a modern society, but I don't hear anybody suggesting that they should get payouts in lieu of land, in fact, they don't appear to be getting much at all that other Australians don't get. They pay their taxes, buy their houses and get on with it.

Meanwhile, at least twenty five thousand Indigenous people have graduated from universities across Australia - it will be fifty thousand by 2020. Commencement, enrolments and graduations at degree- and post-graduate-levels are at all-time records. Urban women have made enormous efforts and today, one in every seven is a graduate.

If 'communities' ever create jobs for them, many of those graduates would be willing to contribute, as long as 'community' members were willing to get the necessary skills and do the same. Urban people have done it - why can't others ? Why should anybody feel particularly sorry for them forever ?

Joe

Loudmouth,
"If 'communities' ever create jobs for them, many of those graduates would be willing to contribute, as long as 'community' members were willing to get the necessary skills and do the same. Urban people have done it - why can't others ? Why should anybody feel particularly sorry for them forever ?"

We should not have to create jobs for them. We should just allow them to do the work demanded on thier homelands. For eg I actually just had a visitor who is from Torres Strait and he was saying they want independance because the area makes millions in fishing but the license is awarded to non Islanders. He said the licenses covers almost all northern and eastern Australia. I think the same for mining. We give them some land rights but we steal economic rights. We attach conditon, laws, interfere and say look at all this money we waste. How can there be organic job growth with so many laws, environmental barriers and preference for corporate exploitation? We never say look how much money we make from stealing from this area. I would love to see Australia break up, it is not one country at heart. Many areas could not only be self sufficient but very wealthy sans the southern fascist plunderers.

Jon J
"The problem has very little to do with Aboriginality, and everything to do with remoteness. If I lived on the dole 500km from the nearest tradesperson, my house would soon be a shambles too."

Yes, true. Oh honey just popping down to Bunnings. New definition of gone walkabout.

To the Missus,

Who's this 'we' and 'them', 'we give', etc. ? What's with this 'allowing 'them' ' ?!?

Concerning mining on Aboriginal lands, my understanding is that royalties are paid into a fund that is distributed by the Land Councils to communities: perhaps I'm wrong. I remember one student in Adelaide down from the NT, back in the eighties, who was getting one thousand dollars every three months from her royalty entitlements (in addition to Study Grant and family benefits), in the days when a full lecturer salary was $ 20-25,000 p.a. Southern Indigenous students were a bit envious.

Few of those southerners came from a homeland, by the way, or even from a rural community. That's how it still is.

Joe

Sarah makes one critical error in an otherwise reasonable treatment of the issue of encouraging private home ownership opportunity.

Indigenous housing bodies are not and never were public housing. that was one of the problems. they were incorproated bodies who were gifted freehold houses on their own land. However, erroneous assumptions that these were 'public' responsibilites meant that there were continued demands for Government funding for maintenance of houses the public didn't own and had no control of, while the owners (the IHCs) failed (in the main) to collect rent and enforce tenancy obligations. At the very least, making sure that publicly funded housing was iThe average rentwas around $30pw an actual collections were far lower again and the rest of the welfare check contributed to some of the dysfunctions. No wonder they were failing.

Indeed public housing at least brought the tenancy arrangements into line with other public tenants. I suspect the delay in building is, in part, because the landowners will not provide the tenure security over the land. that is, they want free houses that others have to maintain while they don't look after them.

Lets not make the mistake that indigenous people don't want private ownership. Indeed, the 'remote-centric' emphasis in policy overlooks that most indigenous peopel lives in regional and coastal cities and buy and rent homes just like everybody else. That;s why ARIA sought to shift money from mainstream communities where normal housing access existed, to remote townships where public housing was an improvement.

I suspect the issue in remote towns is less about choice in buildng and more about a deep seated cultural addiction to welfare housing models that didn't work - along with hopeless lnd tenure that disenfranchises mostaboriginal people who live there.

If white people lived with the same housing structures average individual wealth would be almost $0, as the major compoent in individual welath reamins the family home.

If you search the abc online news for Indigenous housing you will find lots of info to back up that non-indigenous players are getting their snout full before the funding even hits the ground.

Check out http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/09/2737743.htm for details on where the funding goes for housing.

To debunk the myth of 'free housing' check this news article out http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/21/2631772.htm
The people living in tin sheds, some up to 10 people in one dwelling, are paying $25 EACH per fornight, effectively a tin shed with no facilities is returning the govt $250 a fortnight. Hardly free.