A report this week has found poor housing conditions for Indigenous Australians, where 34% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families fail to receive “dwellings of acceptable standard” in public housing areas.
 
Some of the houses lack electricity and running water, particularly in shantytowns on the edges of the Northern Territory (NT), the Productivity Commission study said.
 
Overcrowding is also a problem, as one in 10 Indigenous Australian households live in inadequate spaces. Productivity Commission confirmed 13% of NT homes like those in Alice Springs don’t have enough dwelling spaces.
 
“While there has been an undeniable improvement in Town Camp conditions … the living standards of Town Camp residents remain unacceptably low,” the Tangentyere Council stated on its website.
 
“While inroads will be made into the quality of housing, there remain large challenges to improving the health, education, employment and opportunities for Town Camp residents to determine their own life pathways.”
 
Around 2,000 Indigenous Australians are residents in town camps near Alice Springs.
 
Public broadcaster SBS said in its analysis of the Productivity Commission report that the “gap in reporting could mean overall overcrowding figures are higher, as the NT's town camps may not have entirely been included in the commission's findings”.

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