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Housing failure due to "trashing": commission chair
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
8:33:45 AM
By Julian Drape
NATIONAL, July 8, 2009: The man behind a report into Indigenous disadvantage which the prime minister labelled "devastating" has defended the Rudd government against accusations it's not moving fast enough to build new housing.
Productivity Commission chair Gary Banks says the "unpleasant" fact is that housing problems are partly due to occupants "trashing" them.
If building delays are due to better consultation with Aboriginal communities, that's not necessarily a bad thing, he said in a Reconciliation Australia lecture delivered in Canberra.
Last week, the commission's Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report showed when it comes to child abuse and imprisonment rates, the gap between black and white Australia is growing rather than closing.
There's been some progress in housing, but Indigenous people are still five times more likely to be living in overcrowded dwellings, with the problem worst in remote regions of the Northern Territory.
Kevin Rudd said the report was "devastating" and vowed to "double and treble" the government's efforts.
Since then federal Labor has been criticised following revelations not a single new house has been built in remote NT communities in the past two years.
That's despite more than $670 million being set aside for the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP) in 2007.
Mr Banks says if delays are caused by undue red tape that criticism is valid.
But he tends to agree with Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin's view that it's better to "hasten slowly" to avoid the mistakes of the past.
"The unpleasant fact, not always publicly acknowledged, is that deficiencies in housing are partly due to a proportion of the existing housing having been trashed by the occupants," Mr Banks said on Tuesday.
"This can no doubt be at least partly attributed to such housing not being valued and a lack of incentive or obligation to look after it.
"So if any delays in construction are a consequence of better consultation with communities this time, to determine their housing needs and design preferences, or by trying to achieve a greater sense of buy-in that's occurred in the past, then that should be applauded."
On Monday, Ms Macklin said 25 homes on the Tiwi Islands, Groote Eylandt and in Tennant Creek were being refurbished with SIHIP funds.
Other houses have been built in communities over the past two years, although none were constructed as part of the program, she said.
"(But) by the end of this year, 25 new houses are expected to be under construction and upgrades will have started on 150 houses." - AAP
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