Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to remind the Senate, Mr Deputy President, that it is unparliamentary for a senator to yell out in this chamber while not sitting in their designated seat. You might want to remind Senator Scullion that if he is going to interject he should do it from his own chair, not somewhere else in the ether of this chamber.

SIHIP is a complex program representing the largest investment in Indigenous housing that has ever been undertaken in the Northern Territory. That is why it is essential that this program is properly established with careful management and coordination. SIHIP has set the direction for investment in housing for Indigenous Australians for the long term. It has in fact provided a basis for the new National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing, which will now cover all Australian jurisdictions. The perception that the program is faltering, that the collective resolve of governments is wavering, is clearly wrong. The truth is anything but that. Breaking Indigenous disadvantage in this country does require long-term effort on behalf of governments, and that is what the Commonwealth and Territory governments have committed to.

In the debate on SIHIP, some have claimed that there have not been any new houses built in the bush for over a year. Over the last 18 months the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments have built 90 new houses under programs that overlap with SIHIP. Those claims about no new housing are misleading. What people do not fundamentally understand is that SIHIP replaces all previous housing programs—it is a new program. What underpins this program? Property rights, geography, low levels of employment and economic activity and other factors have meant that the private sector has never moved to address the supply of housing on the Indigenous estate. Those same factors have complicated the delivery of government housing and infrastructure programs for over 40 years.

Before some activity occurred in 2007, for 11 years Indigenous housing was in a state of inertia in this country. For 11 years the previous government sat on their hands before they decided that they would provide the injection of money that was needed to address this problem. What developed over that time was an Indigenous-specific housing system, which was allowed to morph under the Howard federal government, comprising a large number of Indigenous community housing organisations that only managed to build a small number of dwellings—on average, about 100 homes per organisation. Funding for the construction, maintenance and management of those housing organisations came from 12-month grants—let’s get this right—to a collection of programs. We had a mishmash of grants right across this country getting doled out to Indigenous housing organisations on a yearly basis. What progress could possibly have been made under that structure? The answer is very little.