On aboriginal issues

Well, the media and blogs in Australia are running hot today on John Howard's sudden announcement of drastic measures to help stop child abuse in the Northern Territory remote communities.

This seems as good a time as any, then, to express some thoughts on some of the problems with aboriginal housing and culture generally.

1. Second hand experience. I have close relatives who have lived in one of the big Cape York communities, and still live in the area and recently went back to do more work on the community. Although the tavern there has been greatly restricted in its operation (shut completely on welfare payday, I think,) I am told that the atmosphere at the community has still become worse in the last year or so. My relative, for example, recently had to get police help to remove a stone throwing group who were attacking the Council offices because they were upset that their dog had been put down by the vet. (Mangy, decrepit and uncared for dogs are a problem in the community, and they paid for a vet to come and put down the worst ones.)

Alcohol entry into the community is tightly policed.

It seems that alcohol restrictions do not always mean a immediate improvement in general atmosphere of a community. Presumably, there is some improvement in terms of assaults and property destruction, but it's not a magic bullet for making residents feel happier in themselves.

This particular community has recently started a tourist venture (but a very expensive one for anyone to experience.) I am told that it is getting bookings, but having seen it on television, I doubt that it has long term prospects. The local area is simply not particularly attractive.

2. Housing. I think it is well known that for some (or most, or all?) remote aboriginal communities, the problem with housing is exacerbated by their spiritual/religious belief that a house in which a person has died has to be left vacant for some months before it can be re-occupied again, and then only after a ceremony to make sure the spirit is really gone, or happy.

When it is already hard enough to get a barely adequate number of houses built in remote localities, I would like to know how much of a problem this really is. Given high aboriginal mortality, does it mean that, say, you ideally would have an extra pool of (I am guessing) 20% vacant houses if you want death affected families to have a temporary house once every few years?

It sounds as if it could be a really significant reason why housing is always crowded.

Some years ago when discussing this with a (left leaning) brother, I half seriously suggested that perhaps the real solution is to have moveable housing; a sophisticated tent, perhaps. He was horrified that I would suggest condemning aboriginals to such accommodation.

But really, I still think I have a valid case for this. As to the cultural appropriateness of housing, people see Mongolians living in yurts, or Bedouins in tents, and find it sort of romantic. Aborigines living rough in the Northern Territory will live in a humpy, making a modern canvas and wood construction a palace by comparison. Yet there is still the perception that suggesting anything less than a house of bricks is insulting.

You wouldn't make every building in a community like this: they have to be able to get shelter from cyclones and such. But I like to imagine that for (at a guess) maybe $30,000 you could come up with a "super tent" and platform floor combination that is just moored on a bit of land and moved as necessary.

There has been a lot of talk over the years of making appropriately designed, very solid, low maintenance houses for these communities. My suggestion is to go in the other direction: make it virtually disposable, making maintenance as irrelevant as possible.

They can have a new one every couple of years, maybe a new one if they believe they still need to vacate it if a death occurs, and still be ahead of the permanent brick and mortar style housing costs.

Just thinking outside the box, folks.