Each month the MRC will suggest a different policy topic for discussion. We are interested in your views please feel free to leave a comment.
Aboriginal Housing: No Job, No House
Hon DrGary Johns
‘Take me to places where there is no work and I will show you poor houses’. This simple proposition ought to be at the heart of Aboriginal housing policy. As Paul Toohey reported in the Weekend Australian Magazine (January 10-11) governments are choosing to consolidate Aboriginal towns in the Northern Territory (and elsewhere), building up some and letting others die. The consolidation involves the distribution of over $600 million for public housing. There is the hope that jobs will follow.
Of the 73 communities in the NT subject to the Emergency Response (which is a subset of all communities) only 15 will be transformed to towns and provided with better infrastructure and public housing. Private housing awaits the market and the market usually says if you have a job you can borrow for a house. The sub-prime disaster in the USA housing market is a reminder only an income stream begets a house.
The under-the-radar consolidation of Aboriginal settlement has been a long time coming. The persistence with outstations has been an expensive and damaging experiment commenced in the 1960s in part a response to revulsion at fringe dwellers who could not integrate into the modern economy. Now the economy and jobs are back on the political agenda and houses should follow. What is the link between housing and jobs?
In the study, No Job No House: An Economically Strategic Approach To Remote Aboriginal Housing, published by the Menzies Research Centre, it is argued that governments should cease building permanent housing for Aborigines in remote communities where they do not have a job in the real economy and where they are unable to, like other Australians, pay rent or a service a mortgage. Governments are coming to the same conclusion; the trick is in the transition. The consolidation is an interim solution to a much larger and long run issue. In time people must adjust to the circumstances and if a job does not come to their town they will have to move to the job. Sitting in places where there is no work ensures poverty.
An analysis of the 2006 Census suggests a number of trends with housing implications. Aborigines are leaving remote communities but many remain and are reluctant to leave to search for work. Employment projections suggest there is little prospect of employment growth in much of the land on which Aboriginal communities are located. A clue to surviving in remote Australia lies in the temporary nature of much non-Aboriginal accommodation, presumably because non-Aborigines stay only so long as their job lasts. Of course, those who have a base elsewhere can return to that base, for example to the city, but accommodation should not become a reason to not chase work.
In developing future policy for remote communities the Government will need to distinguish between: emergency accommodation such as hostelsfor men and shelters for women and children, where the need is proven; transitional accommodation like caravans and demountables for Aborigines visiting remote areas and more permanent accommodation such as private housing or housing commission style in permanent communities only where there is a reasonable prospect of a proper maintenance program and work.
In developing their policy the Government should distinguish four types of location –
Outstations and homelands – with no permanent accommodation unless a case for economic viability is proven.
Larger indigenous settlements – where land title changes are essential before there is any public and private investment. These settlements are not likely to be economically viable but regional stability dictates some public investment.
Country towns – which will experience stress due to influx of Aboriginal settlers should be better provided with services, including ‘refugee’ resources and facilities.
Major cities and regional centres – where any shortfalls should be handled by mainstream services, including ‘refugee’ resources and facilities.
Governments should explore the location and eligibility for each form of accommodation. Such exploration should be undertaken on the basis that Aborigines when informed of their options may consider them and make decisions about where to live. The aim should be to house people in a sustainable fashion. The only way to do this is to encourage people to pursue opportunities and be rewarded. Those who will not or cannot seize the opportunity should not be housed in the same manner as those who do.
Accommodation solutions will require a suite of other policies to reinforce the responsibilities attached to the housing market. These will range from welfare obligations, specifically income management as with the NT Intervention initiatives, land title changes, ‘refugee’ services to assist resettlement, and financial schemes such as ‘sweat equity’, ‘financial literacy’ and government special assistance to encourage home ownership.
Finally, infrastructure expenditure should be approached with caution and incorporate discussion about future viability of the communities. In this regard, structural adjustment will be essential as many communities face change in their livelihood and location. Structural adjustment requires that governments assist people to move and establish themselves where prospects are better, or if not, be made aware of the consequences of remaining.
I respond to the aboriginal housing issue as invited, but I don’t want to be prescriptive or employ the old carrot and stick strategy. It is blindingly obvious to me that no purpose is being served by maintaining remote communities without reasonable prospects of improving aboriginal prospects. This seems to be the researcher’s premise too, but unlike America, we have no inspirational black leaders, and Australian blacks have a quite different history and culture than that of American blacks so I do not propose that housing be conditional on employment. White Australians have for too long, classified Aboriginal people as ‘lost causes’ and it has become a self-fulfilling prognosis. We have catered to emotive images of a ‘stolen generation’ without expecting those who weren’t stolen to do anything more than reclaim land in remote areas on which to revive the worst aspects of their culture.
A common failing of do-good schemes, is to try to improve conditions for the bright child along with the tribally conditioned mother and the drunken, abusive father, and for every Cathy Freeman, there are countless children who are doomed. It is also difficult to provide jobs for Aboriginals in order to get them away from remote locations, when we can’t provide jobs for the skilled or the educated – black or white- and that situation is getting worse. So I tend towards the idea of establishing (say) 20 separate houses in medium sized town locations and selecting young children whose parents (even if only one
parent) are willing to accompany them and look after them, to occupy these houses. The occupying parent/s could be assisted by a two-person team of black and white administrators, located in the town, and while the kids were at school, the parents could also be schooled in prevailing norms of behaviour and acquainted with the possibilities being held out to their children.
We white people delude ourselves that all parents are willing to sacrifice for their children, but sacrifice is a very twisted concept and it would be far less problematic if we simply said we were trying to establish a civil society in which their children, but probably not them, would be given a chance to grow and to contribute. I don’t think the housing provided should depend on the provision of a job to either parent: just on the willingness to learn new measures of civility and allow their children to do likewise. We simply can’t afford to fob them off with money or land grants any longer, but nor can we expect them to embrace a culture that consigns them to the rubbish heap as lost causes, or expects them to adopt white attitudes towards work overnight. The education ought to be free, as well as language and cooking classes if necessary, and other concessions explained, and perhaps some voluntary work might be performed in exchange, but I think that’s as much as we can expect from people whose culture has been shaped by remoteness and perceived loss for so long.
Helen W. (Kinloch) Dehn (Dr.)
Soldiers Hill Branch
Ballarat Vic.
Reading Helen W's comment, I agree to some extent that many whites tend to see Aboriginals as "rubbish."
In my opinion, government policies of the last several - perhaps 30 years, have contributed to the disdain for Aboriginals.
Encouraging Aboriginal politicians who have tended to concentrate on abstracts - their rights, land rights, stolen generations and so on, as opposed to practical considerations such as work, housing,health, education - the things Noel Pearson promotes, has been a dismal failure and the consequences can be sheeted home to complacent,sweep-it-under-the-carpet ideologicaly driven white politicans.
Having said that, I think Dr. John's argument has much merit.
In these troubled economic times it is increasingly apparent that money cannot continue to be poured into bottomless pits as with keeping small settlements functioning.
One only has to think of the billions already spent with little to show for it, to understand that this cannot continue.
I guess it would be culturally difficult for Aboriginals in such settlements to move and adopt, probably, a radical new way of life, but for their own sake and particularly for their children, this should be mandatory.
If such consolidation is occurring, then that is a very good thing, as is income management.
I do think larger communities and housing attached to jobs is probably the best way to go. The question is what sort of employment/industry could be brought to such areas. Prior even to that consideration is the problem of dealing with entrenched cultural attitudes.
I have some reservation about bringing Aboriginals to large urban areas and cities as there they tend to become exactly what some white people tend to see them as - Aboriginal rubbish.
There are already major infrastructure shortages, work problems,social problems, policing problems in areas which become sort of ghettoes, without adding a further problem to the mix.
I think this would be a disaster for all concerned, and yet another policy detrimental to Aborigines.
None of the above is to say something should not be done. It is just to recognise - no matter how superficially - some of the major problems the project would face and to also recognise that such a programme would take many years to accomplish.
