At a homelands sector forum organised by Aboriginal Housing NT (AHNT) last year, Chairperson Alan Mole described that “Homelands are deeply embedded in the spiritual and cultural fabric of Aboriginal life. They carry the stories, traditions, songlines, and knowledge passed down through generations of people.”
There are over 500 recognised homelands in the NT that are home to about 7000 residents. In recent history, this represents the major achievement of the homelands, or outstations, movement that commenced in the 1960s and involved many Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory (NT) returning to live on their ancestral Country. Tens of thousands more Aboriginal people in the NT are linked to homelands while living in larger remote communities or towns. As Yingiya Mark Guyula MLA describes it, “Our connection to Country is an umbilical cord.”
In October 2022, the Commonwealth Government announced $100 million for urgent works at Northern Territory (NT) homelands. This was the first significant Commonwealth funding for homelands housing for almost a decade and it underpinned the new Homelands Housing and Infrastructure Program (HHIP).
In 2024, alongside the $4 billion NT Remote Housing package, a further $120 million was committed to homelands, extending the HHIP to 2027. The HHIP now operates alongside the NT Government’s Homelands Program.
HHIP funding has been welcomed. But $220 million is well below the $1.1 billion estimated by a 2022 audit to bring homelands housing and infrastructure to a safe and functional standard. Equally significant, the HHIP has exposed the shortcomings of homelands policy. This has been most stark in relation to the issues of replacement houses and homelands eligibility.
To date, the HHIP has not supported new housing at homelands. This is despite the wishes of many residents and the poor condition of dwellings.
The funding agreements underpinning the HHIP have been unclear on whether funds can be used to replace dwellings or build new houses. As such, the de facto position to preclude new houses on homelands – where the government does not typically hold a community lease – has continued.
Homelands residents have been frustrated at why dilapidated dwellings are renovated rather than replaced. One resident told me, “We don’t want these houses renovated. We need new houses. I have a teenage son. He’s living in there – two-bedroom shed.” Service providers, some of whom originally proposed new construction, have been required to renovate fit-for-demolition dwellings.
Such dwellings evidence a policy history of inadequate provisioning. From Department of Aboriginal Affairs grants for basic shelters, to Homelands Extras Allowance extensions, to HHIP refurbishments – minor additions, patches, and partial fixes have always characterised NT homelands policy.
Alongside this issue of new and replacement housing, homeland eligibility for HHIP funds has also been constrained by an unwillingness to address difficult policy issues.
In the NT, there are about 380 “funded homelands”, which means a homeland is supported by the NT Government’s Homelands Program. Only funded homelands have been eligible to receive HHIP funding.
This status depends on meeting eligibility criteria related to occupancy and infrastructural condition. There are many reasons why a specific homeland may become unoccupied. Residents may move elsewhere for work, family, health, or cultural reasons. Or residents might vacate homelands after governments’ protracted neglect of the infrastructure necessary to live on Country.
A defunded homeland is unlikely to have the amenities necessary for one’s principal place of residence. A catch-22 exists; without access to Homelands Program funding, it’s almost impossible to improve a homeland’s infrastructure to qualify for ongoing support.
The restriction of the HHIP to funded homelands was despite some traditional owners’ wishes for HHIP funds to be invested at previously occupied but defunded homelands, and without a clear pathway to reestablish this funded status. The prior neglect of certain, especially very remote, homelands is thus reinforced through their exclusion from the HHIP.
The unwillingness to establish policy that clarifies government responsibilities at homelands is a decades-long inheritance. Contested obligations were evident at the commencement of NT self-government in 1978 and the marginalisation of homelands was explicit in an inter-governmental Memorandum of Understanding established following the NT Intervention, which proscribed the use of Commonwealth funds for constructing houses on homelands.
The most recent NT Government Homelands Policy from 2015 states that: “The Northern Territory Government has no immediate plans to build new houses on homelands or establish new homelands.” Despite the HHIP investment, the past decades of policy constitute a slow withdrawal of government support for homelands. One-off investments have been insufficient to counteract funding attrition elsewhere, and the circumstances to live and work on Country have become increasingly difficult and precarious.
But the present moment provides an opportunity to shift course. The June 2024 Partnership Agreement for Remote Housing and Homelands committed all members of the Joint Steering Committee for Remote Housing NT (the Commonwealth and NT Governments, the four land councils, and Aboriginal Housing NT) “to develop a long-term policy position for homelands within the first two years of the Agreement, including in relation to new and replacement homes”. The end of the 2025-26 financial year marks this deadline.
Given the HHIP’s success to date, continued funding for housing refurbishments at homelands is likely, and the JSC-RHNT will likely clarify criteria for replacement housing.
But homelands cannot thrive by continuing the long era of politicised, intermittent funding. Instead, a more comprehensive policy response is required in the form of a “Homelands Housing Policy”. There are at least six things we should demand of such a policy.
- The policy should provide a shared vision for the future of homelands that recognises their cultural significance and importance to the wider housing system. Relative to obligations under the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, and Closing the Gap, this requires governments to recognise their infrastructural obligations to homelands.
- It should commit to funding the necessary infrastructure to support thriving homelands, at least concurrent to the 2034 timeline of the NT Remote Housing package.
- It should commit to replacing dilapidated homelands dwellings and building new houses to meet residents’ needs, rejecting the prior position that government leasing must precede housing investment.
- It must include a pathway for establishing new and reestablishing defunded homelands, supported by a “Homelands establishment fund” to provide grants to meet infrastructural requirements.
- It must clarify how any housing investment occurs alongside requisite essential services infrastructure development, meeting obligations under Closing the Gap Target 9B.
- Finally, the policy should clarify how homelands residents will direct decision-making about program design and investment at homelands, into the future.
