Opinion & Commentary
Ownership would transform Aboriginal towns
Indigenous living standards in remote townships and outstations continue to lag badly despite positive changes from income management, alcohol restrictions and turning pretend Community Development Employment Project jobs into real employment opportunities. The denial of private property rights to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders on indigenous lands continues to cause extremes of poverty and dysfunction.
Kick- starting private housing by offering most indigenous tenants the choice at no cost of taking ownership of the houses in which they live, would transform remote communities.
Indigenous lands account for nearly 20per cent of Australia and nearly 50per cent of the Northern Territory. In this vast area, equivalent to the 20th largest country in the world, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders cannot own their own home.
Higgledy-piggledy ''native land'' acquisition has subjected indigenous lands to a chaotic array of tenure arrangements, ranging from freehold to limited rights of access. But legislators and administrators have baulked at identifying the actual individual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander landowners. Because individual landowners are not identified, the benefits of the land they own, including large royalty flows, are absorbed by land trusts, councils and other bodies.
Secure titles in the form of long-term leases are largely confined to townships in the Tiwi, Groote and Bickerton islands being managed by the Commonwealth Office of Township Leasing (OTL) in the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. The Tiwi and Groote land trusts have outsourced control of their land to the Office of Township Leasing by agreeing to long-term head leases to the Commonwealth.
The existing Commonwealth OTL model for townships is flawed. It does not cover 99.9per cent of indigenous lands area, even though it covers 85per cent of indigenous lands population. It doesn't identify individual landowners, and leases for private houses (nominally 99 years) expire with the head lease. If the Groote Eylandt head lease is not renewed, housing leases there will be for less than 38 years. Head leases should be either in perpetuity or 999 years, enabling genuine 99-year housing leases as in Canberra.
Indigenous lands are private property, and communities are reluctant to hand control to governments for long periods. This contributes to the Commonwealth's failure to convince other townships to sign up. Identification of individual landowners and decisions on leases and covenants should be done at a community level.
On some indigenous lands, notably mainland Northern Territory, the existing land council structure does not match traditional community boundaries. In an alternative model, indigenous communities would hold the head lease on their lands and, like a gated estate or block of units, decide on housing and business leases and associated covenants. These decisions should rightly be made by the landowners. Outsourcing to government the management, rather than the decision-making, would remain an option.
In Queensland 99-year lease legislation that would provide secure titles for private homes and businesses for private housing has been passed but is not being implemented. Other states are further behind. Private housing has been crowded out by a focus on ''social'' housing. Yet the media constantly exposes many of the 13,000 existing ''social'' dwellings on indigenous lands that are only fit to be bulldozed. Many others would not be granted a certificate of occupancy in mainstream Australia.
More than 20,000 families are crowded into these 13,000 houses. The most derelict dwellings, often without living rooms, kitchens and bathrooms, but sharing long-drop dunnies, are in outstations where no new ''social'' housing will be built. Despite planned expenditure of more than $6billion by the Commonwealth alone, current refurbishments plus new construction will at most result in 17,000 dwellings. This is far short of the current number of households, let alone new households being formed.
''Social'' houses cost taxpayers $400,000 to $900,000 per house. Equivalent private houses can be delivered for $200,000 to $250,000. Government support for landowner body corporates to facilitate private housing and business would be a far more effective use of taxpayer funds. Establishing real landowner control over indigenous lands will take time, but private home and business ownership cannot wait.
Three groups of ''social'' housing tenants on indigenous lands should immediately be given the option of taking ownership at no cost of the houses they live in. All tenants in communities where governments no longer fund new ''social'' housing. Tenants who have been paying rent for more than 10 years. Tenants of houses that cannot be certified fit for occupancy. Owning their home would be more meaningful compensation than apologies for the present shocking housing conditions. Tenants who opt for ownership could immediately begin to improve their dwellings.
The positive social consequences of home ownership, including reduced mobility leading to more stable employment and better school attendance, are well known. If royalties were paid into dedicated individual landowners' accounts similar to superannuation accounts, ample housing finance would become available to kick-start economic development.
Emeritus Professor Hughes is a senior fellow and Sara Hudson is a policy analyst with the Centre for Independent Studies. Mark Hughes is an independent researcher. Private Housing on Indigenous Lands was published by the CIS.
