More than 8000 new homes must be built by the Commonwealth as an “emergency measure” to address severe overcrowding in First Nations communities, according to Indigenous advocacy groups.
Justice group Change the Record and housing group Everybody’s Home have urged the winner of next month’s election to urgently invest in the sector.
Cheryl Axleby is the co-chair of Change the Record, which is calling for more housing.
The groups’ election priority document said appropriate housing was key to improving health outcomes and preventing family violence in First Nations communities.
“As an emergency measure to address the overcrowding crisis, we call for an immediate investment over four years in a minimum of 8500 new co-designed, culturally appropriate, climate resilient properties across the continent,” it said.
“We also call for further funding to the states and territories to ensure existing public housing is retrofitted and properly maintained as the climate crisis worsens.”
According to the most recent Productivity Commission data from 2016, more than seven per cent of non-Indigenous people lived in overcrowded conditions. But the rate for Indigenous people was 21.1 per cent.
Governments around Australia have committed to reducing that figure to at least 12 per cent by 2031 under the historic National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
The only jurisdictions meeting that target are the ACT and Tasmania. However, the Northern Territory is by far the worst performer, with 61.6 per cent of Indigenous people there living in overcrowded housing.
The severity of overcrowding in some Indigenous communities was put under the spotlight last year after a COVID-19 outbreak swept through western NSW towns such as Wilcannia, where many people could not adequately isolate from their families inside their homes.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic the impossibility of safe isolation in overcrowded homes saw people in remote First Nations communities sleeping in tents, yards, on verandahs and in the bush to try to avoid infection as the virus spread through families and communities,” the election priority document said.
While the advocacy groups did not put forward a figure for how much they expected the new houses to cost, the NT’s influential Central Land Council suggested earlier this year that at least $2 billion over the next five years would be needed to address the crisis in its region alone.
In 2019, the federal and NT governments entered into an agreement to jointly fund the construction of 1950 new bedrooms, the equivalent of 650 three-bedroom homes, by 2023.
But the Australian Nation Audit Office found that only 363, equal to 121 three-bedroom houses, had been built by last September.
Experts have also raised concerns about the effects of climate change on low socio-economic remote communities in the NT after a study from the Australian National University suggested poorly constructed houses in those areas were more expensive to heat and cool.
Labor has promised $200 million to repair and maintain existing homes in Indigenous communities, and has also pledged to build 20,000 new social housing properties.
However, it is unclear how many of those properties would be built in Indigenous communities.
A Labor spokesman would not say if the party would build new homes in Indigenous communities, but he did say the $200 million pledge would be a significant start.
The Coalition campaign headquarters was contacted for comment.
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