Indigenous Home Ownership Panel Discussion

Tom Calma

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner

Indigenous Home Ownership Panel Discussion

Royal Australian Institute of Architects

Which way? Directions in Indigenous Housing Conference  

Alice Springs, 27 October 2007

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Arrernte people – the
traditional owners of the land we are meeting on today and by paying my respects
to their ancestors.

I also want to congratulate the Indigenous Housing Taskforce of the Royal
Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) for their initiative to organise this
conference on Indigenous housing need.

As in the area of Indigenous health, if we are to ‘close the
gaps’ and make sure that Indigenous people enjoy the same basic right to
adequate housing as most other Australians – then we need to bring entire
sectors together to get things happening.

Let me now turn to the human right to adequate housing

The right to
adequate housing is a basic right that many Indigenous Australians do not enjoy.



But it is a human right contained in the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Australia has ratified and is
legally bound to implement.



One of the legal obligations on the
Australian Government is to regularly report to the UN Expert Committee that
oversees government implementation of this international law. And that
Committee has said that the right to adequate housing ‘should be seen as
the right to live somewhere in security, peace and
dignity’.^[1]



It has
emphasised that the right to housing is linked to other fundamental rights such
as the right to the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health,
employment, education and the right to not be discriminated
against on the basis of race.



The UN Committee has stated that the
right to adequate housing should be irrespective of income or access to economic
resources. This means governments must take particular actions to make sure
disadvantaged groups are accorded ‘full and sustainable access to adequate
housing resources’.^[2] We too
should have access to safe drinking water, sanitation, energy sources, privacy
and space, and adequate location with regard to work and basic
infrastructure.



The UN Committee specifies that housing should be
‘culturally adequate’. And by this, the Committee means
that:

‘...the way housing is constructed, the building materials used and the
policies supporting these must appropriately enable the expression of cultural
identity and diversity of
housing’.^[3]

And these cultural dimensions to the right to housing should not be
sacrificed in the name of ‘modernisation’ or to accommodate
‘technological improvements’. Rather there is an onus on governments
to ensure housing options cater to particular cultural needs, as well as modern
design standards – the two are not mutually exclusive goals.



One
further aspect of the right to adequate housing is the right to have legal
security of tenure, and legal protection against forced eviction, regardless of
whether a person is renting, an owner-occupier or living in emergency housing.
And I will come back to this point shortly.

I therefore want to congratulate the Royal Australian Institute of Architects
on your policy on Indigenous housing – because it incorporates all of
these aspects of the basic human right to adequate housing. It is an essential
tool to guide your work and ensure that you are meeting the minimum world best
practice standards when it comes to Indigenous human rights.

Your work in this regard is very timely given the crisis in Indigenous
housing in Australia.

So what is the Australian Government’s position on this? I will not
elaborate but refer you to this slide.

The extent of the housing crisis I refer to was the subject of a report to
the United Nations Human Rights Council by the UN Special Rapporteur on the
Right to Adequate Housing, Miloon Kothari, following his officially sanctioned
visit to Australia in mid 2006. The Rapporteur wrote of being
‘particularly disturbed by the adverse housing conditions in the
Indigenous communities he visited ....[i]n both urban and rural areas in all
states.’ It was the lack of affordable and culturally appropriate housing,
the lack of appropriate support services, the significant levels of poverty and
the underlying discrimination that he saw which led him to sum up the situation
as a ‘severe housing crisis’ that is likely to worsen in coming
years as a result of the rapid rate of population growth in Indigenous
communities.^[4].

In 2006, my Native Title Report focused on the Australian
Government’s policies to promote economic development on Indigenous-owned
land – which is now a little over 20% of the Australian land mass.

In the course of that analysis I looked at Indigenous housing and home
ownership for Indigenous Australians who are in a position to achieve these
goals. Let me say at the outset that I support Indigenous home ownership and
economic development, but I outlined some of the potential pitfalls of building
houses to sell to Indigenous people where there are no housing markets and
limited employment options. In instances such as these where Indigenous people
are borrowing a large percentage of the house cost; if not the total, they may
ultimately be struggling with a debt burden that they cannot service over time,
and because of the non-existent housing market, they may never realise any
profit from the housing asset.

Under these circumstances, there is also risk for lenders such as Indigenous
Business Australia. Lending in instances of negative equity create unstable
economic conditions as we have seen with sub-prime mortgages in the United
States. I have some concerns for my fellow Indigenous Australians – one of
the most vulnerable groups in the Australian population – being encouraged
to take on increased levels of debt.

To better understand the predicament we need to understand the profile of
Indigenous home owners

Indigenous Australians can and do buy our own homes, but those of us who are
able to do it, fit the same profile as non-Indigenous home owners. In its 1996 Evaluation of the Home Ownership Program, the Office of Evaluation and
Audit observed that the ‘profile of the Indigenous home owner is quite
similar to non-Indigenous home owner in Australia,’ exhibiting
many of the demographic characteristics of their non-Indigenous counterparts
including geographic location, employment status and income level. And this
profile has not changed in the ten years since the report was released.

In contrast, Indigenous Australians living in remote communities are one of
the most disadvantaged groups on every social indicator.

Only a minority of these communities are located in resource-rich areas with
well-developed governance structures, and have experience in negotiating
agreements, or the capacity to leverage economic opportunities.

The majority of remote communities are located in desert or marginal areas
where there is limited or no development potential. They battle with low rates
of employment, poor levels of education, and remoteness from basic public
services. This means that there is a real risk that if people default on
mortgage repayments, they will slip into worse poverty. Given that we are
starting to see mortgage defaults amongst the mainstream ‘battlers’
– we cannot pretend remote Indigenous home owners would be any
different.

As Robert Knapp indicated yesterday, a compounding housing problem and
expense in remote areas is high maintenance costs due to exposure to extreme
weather conditions, construction problems, and the fact that contractors and
equipment have to be transported into these areas.

With these matters in mind, the question must therefore be asked: if home
ownership on its own will not serve as a model, what is the key to
prosperity - and to improved housing for Indigenous people in remote areas?

I think the answers are well summarised in the RAIA policy on Indigenous
housing – so I won’t reiterate them in the limited time today. But
I will highlight a few issues and for your reference I will display a couple of
slides that will describe principles of a human rights based approach to
engagement.

A pertinent question yesterday was why many people are living on the outside
of their houses – on their verandas or in basic structures like we saw in
the Utopia clips? I wonder if there is some kind of design flaw that can be
addressed? It is imperative that we ask people why they bring their mattresses
out of the house for sleeping.

Have you also seen the houses in the top end with the crosses on them or
lines painted around them with no inhabitants? We know someone has died in these
houses and they can’t be inhabited. I’m sure most of us wonder
what could be done to preserve the asset especially if it was a purchaser
occupied residence.

The answer obviously is consultation with local people to ensure that housing
design meets local needs and that owner loans are not foreclosed.

One aspect of RAIA’s Indigenous housing policy that I would also like
to emphasis – because it should be part of any future initiatives to
overcome Indigenous disadvantage – is the need to employ local people to
‘keep houses working’.

Overcrowding is a problem in remote, regional and urban Australia. The
Steering Committee for Government Service Provision reported that Indigenous
people in the community housing sector are 5.6 times more likely to live in
overcrowded houses than the non-Indigenous population. The reason for this may
partly lie in the cultural situation and obligations of many Indigenous
families, with research such the Western Australian Equal Opportunity
Commission’s ‘Finding a Place’ report identifying that
too often, ‘Aboriginal families become de facto emergency housing
providers for family and friends as the result of the lack of adequate housing
stock’.

Not only can the resulting overcrowding in houses lead to serious health
problems and the increased possibility of abuse situations occurring, but it can
also lead to ongoing problems relating to tenancy eligibility. Breach of tenancy
agreements by overcrowding, and resulting anti-social behaviour complaints by
neighbours can also be lasting strikes on the record of Indigenous
people’s tenancy records, which can lead to them being moved down the list
in the allocation of public housing. Although this form of discrimination is, in
most cases, indirect, it can still lead to a disproportionate number of
Indigenous families waiting much longer than they should for adequate and
suitable housing. Again sustained and appropriate consultation with local
communities and planning will go a long way to alleviating some of these
problems.

The RAIA
Indigenous housing policy acknowledges that houses need to be;

• Better designed with the inclusion of more bedrooms and bathrooms to meet
  the needs of larger Indigenous families, and
• They need to be lasting and durable in order to be an investment that does
  not require constant service maintenance and upkeep.

The
Australian Housing and Research Institute’s report Indigenous Access to
Mainstream Public and Community Housing identified that Indigenous community
housing; if properly managed, plays a unique role in maintaining cultural
identity. This will be the challenge for the mainstream housing sector. In
particular, community housing that meets the need of Indigenous clients
requires appropriate service delivery mechanisms, realistic debt management
processes, appropriate training for staff and volunteers in the community
housing sector, and the establishment and maintenance of links with the local
community and with support services.

I therefore want to express my support for the reference in the RAIA policy
on Indigenous housing for the need for there to be mandatory curriculum content
on Indigenous cultural awareness in all accredited tertiary architectural,
building and planning courses.

This awareness of the historical and contemporary reasons for entrenched
Indigenous disadvantage is critical if the architects and planners of tomorrow
are to understand their Indigenous clients, have the capacity to better meet our
needs, and have us work along side you as professional peers.

I cannot emphasise enough how important the leadership of professional bodies
like RAIA is to drive this kind of change in our institutions of learning and in
the political arena. It takes real commitment and determination to convince many
of the powers that be that they have a responsibility to help overcome
Indigenous disadvantage – and that changing curricula and changing
mindsets are the keys to changing attitudes and opening up new opportunities for
national reconciliation.

So in conclusion, as I outlined at the beginning of this speech, the
fundamental intersection between housing and quality of life for Indigenous
people means that all of you, in your professional lives, can and must continue
to take steps that will improve the lives of Indigenous people in your area of
work.

If we follow the principles outlined in a human rights approach to
engagement, if we follow the principles of free, prior and informed consent
(slide 8), if we continue to provide affordable and durable public and community
housing and if we provide the capacity for affordable home loans for those who
have an inclination to purchase a home – then we will assist Indigenous
people to realise “their Australian dream”.

I hope that in doing so, we will collectively contribute to a growing sense
of optimism among both black and white Australians that there can be social
justice and reconciliation in our lifetime. Slide 9

Thank you

^[1] Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, General Comment 4: The right to adequate housing, Sixth Session, 13 December 1991, Para
7.

^[2] Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 4: The right to adequate
housing, Sixth Session, 13 December 1991, Para
8(e).

^[3] Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 4: The right to adequate
housing, Sixth Session, 13 December 1991, Para
8(g).

^[4] Kothari, M. Report of
the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an
Adequate Standard of Living, Mission to Australia, 31 July – 15
August 2006, Addendum, Fourth Session of the Human Rights Council,
A/HRC/4/18/Add.2, 11 May 2007, para.85.