In taking over 73 Northern Territory Indigenous town leases for 5 years, the Federal Government also inherits public housing stock in the targeted communities. This housing is widely acknowledged as inadequate and poorly maintained. In February this year the Northern Territory Minister for Housing, Elliot McAdam, made a statement to the Northern Territory Parliament on Indigenous housing saying, 'I know the word 'crisis' is often ill-used, but in speaking out today on Indigenous housing in the Northern Territory, I cannot think of a better term’.
In Yuendumu, community housing (around 100 to 110 houses) is managed and maintained by the Community Council. Given the population estimate of 1000, this makes the average occupancy at least 10 people per house. Much of the housing stock is old and bears visible signs of overcrowding and infrequent maintenance.
The maintenance and repair of housing in Yuendumu is conducted by contractors brought in from Alice Springs by the Council. Requests for repairs are submitted by residents, some of whom report that they have waited up to three years for action. External contractors are often very costly, with a locksmith recently charging $1200 for an hour's work. There are no local plumbers or electricians nor any trade training available in the community.
In one of the few amendments made to the intervention legislation so far, the Federal Government has exempted itself from the responsibility to maintain and repair the community housing it now controls, describing the backlog as an unfair burden.
According to the Yuendumu Council's 2006 5 year plan, there are at least 37 families waiting for housing in the community. The recent acquisition of 8 new portable 3 bedroom homes (not related to the intervention) does little to alleviate this need and a spokesperson from the Council says that the population of the community is growing. Crowding and inadequate housing are identified in the Little Children are Sacred report as key underlying factors contributing to child neglect and abuse. The Australian institute of Health and Welfare released its housing report last week, which found that 30% of the total dwellings managed by Indigenous housing organisations required major repair or replacement.
On Monday, 9 Centrelink and Job Network staff visited Yuendumu to explain to community members the new income management measures, which will come into effect next year. The team was also there to remove Centrelink recipients from the Remote Area Exemption rule, which exempted them from activity testing based on their residence in areas where there is no locally accessible labour market
This week in Voices from the Heart of the Nation people talk about housing and also the concepts of home, place and belonging.
West Camp = an area of houses in the west of Yuendumu
yapa = Aboriginal people
kardiya = non-Aboriginal people
jukurrpa = Dreaming
ngurra = camp, home, homeland
kuruwarri = the marks made on people or objects that are associated with different jukurrpa
Yurrampi = honeyant, as the honeyant Dreaming travels right through Yuendumu the community often goes by this name
yujuku = humpy
Kalkaringi = Wave Hill Station, where Vincent Lingiari led the famous walk-off in the 60s in a protest for equal wages and land rights.
Ngajuku = for me, mine.
ngurrju = good
ngurrju-nyayirni = really good
punku = bad
yuwayi = yes
lawa = nothing
Donkey, Nomad and Yapatula houses = all government built transitional homes from the ‘50s and ‘60s that were designed to help people transition from living in humpies or tin sheds to houses. Called "Donkey houses" because they remind some of stables.
Ned Hargraves is a leader of the Yuendumu community. He has worked as Sport & Rec Officer, and in education. He currently has the role of acting Community Liaison Officer with Yuendumu Council.
I’ve lived in Yuendumu for many years – all my life. My house is west, west camp. I live with the people that I’ve got in my family – my immediate family – I’ve got my daughter, my son-in-law, my two granddaughters, my son and his wife and me and my wife and a dog. I’ve got a place where I can call my home – my ngurra. Yuendumu is our ngurra and so are our outstations – our father’s father’s ngurra – home. Homeland is very important to us. We have a very strong connection to the land, to the area where we are from and what was given to us. Jukurrrpa is kuruwarri…kuruwarri is your Dreamtime, Dreaming stories. Jukurrpa is when your Dreamtime tells the story and what does it mean to you. Kuruwarri is something that you hold – it’s for you, it’s for me that I have that was given down from my warringiyi – grandfather. That’s why we are not nobody, we are something to this land and to our children and to our children to come.
I’m not happy about what the government’s proposing to us – that we give our land away, that we give Yuendumu away to government to get, to run it. This Yuendumu, this ngurra, this yurrampi. Yurrampi means honey ants, which is jukurrpa for Yuendumu. That is the jukurrpa now – honey ants. We’re not going to give it to the government because they don’t know nothing about this land. This land is something to us. It’s a very important place. We play lots of roles into it like ceremonies into it. Ceremonies that we do for this land. Government is only trying to get this land so that they can run it, to sell back to us. Well, this government has no idea of this land.
Right now, people still don’t have enough money to pay rent. Not because they spend it on grog and run away with it and do something else with it no, it’s because half the time they are worried about their family – they feed their family and put petrol in the car and sometimes there’s not enough money to pay rent. With these things that have been put to us with mortgages and that other stuff with the housing, I think it’s very bad and it’s not understandable for us. The first thing is that we don’t know anything about mortgages and when it’s going to occur to us and when it’s going to happen to us with our money and us living in the houses. Like if I don’t pay off my mortgage I might as well go and build a humpy – yujuku – go back to yujuku where I can just don’t have to pay mortgage. All I’ve got to do is build a tin shed or a humpy. I think that buying mortgage is really – is not really good way of doing things with us because putting these sort of things into words that we don’t understand but that government understands – it’s pretty hard. It’s like me saying something in Warlpiri to Mal Brough or someone – he wouldn’t understand a thing I say. That’s the same thing with us – we don’t understand with you, with your ideas and the things that you want us to do, and the way that you want us to live. It just sucks mate!
Jeannie was a teacher at Yuendumu School for over 30 years. She now works for the Jaru Pirrjirdi program with young people. She’s married to Thomas Jangala Rice, a senior Warlpiri elder, and has many children and grandchildren.
(We have) about six generations (living) in the one house. Ten adults and four babies. One bedroom is my two granddaughters – with their babies and their husbands. And my son is in another bedroom yeah. That’s our way, our life. Aboriginal lives always, in remote communities we live together. It’s good for us because we always eat together and we’re brought up living together and eating together. Because Aboriginal people, we don’t leave our families and go and live in other communities and things like that far away. We always live together in one community.
Ngurra is home. We live in one ngurra. Outstations are ngurra – that’s homeland. It's families. In one community – we live together in one ngurra. My ngurra is Kirdirdi outstation, not far from here, about 1km away.
(At the moment) we’re renting from the council. They fix it up the air-conditioning if it needs to be fixed or like if we have problems with the stove – the new stoves - or fix windows, if we have problems with windows we just go into the council office and sign the papers to fix everything…the taps. Sometimes it takes a while. Yeah, it takes a while.
The new changes make us worry and make us move. I will move to my outstation – to a better place to live. No rent and things there. That’s what they say in that meeting. We’re going to walk out from this community, everyone, we’re going to walk out from this community like at Kalkaringi. That’s what they say if governments are really threatening to take over this community – this remote community Yuendumu – they’ll start to walk out. That’s what they say in that last meeting.
(Home ownership in Yuendumu might be difficult because) when people pass away in the community they (their family) swaps (houses) over with other families. That’s what we do now when someone passes away in that house – another mob moves in and that Sorry mob moves out to another house.
We don’t know about these new changes that we read about. It’s going to make it very hard for people in remote communities. That makes us very worried. And everything will be stopped. Like old people’s pension will be getting pocket money $200 and the rest of the money will be holding back and they won’t be spending everywhere in other communities - they’ll be holding back. They’ll be spending in this community and in Alice Springs through Centrelink. Those sort of things. It’s going to be hard for old people and for people living in remote communities.
Harry was born in 1964 or 1954 at Mt Denison Station. He is married with four sons, two daughters, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Harry has worked on cattle stations since he was a young fellow: Coniston, Pine Hill, Dawn Station, and has also lived in Mt Allan. He has been a fruit picker in Gundagai and still works on cattle stations. He is currently staying in Yuendumu while waiting for the Council to fix the bore at his outstation.
My name is Harry Jones. I live in outstation. That outstation we call it Kiripi outstation, Kiripi we call it because in the Dreaming a kangaroo been crawl along there. (It's about) 20 miles (from Yuendumu). I live there with my family. My wife, Eliza, (my sons) John, Robbie and my two daughter-in-laws with their kids. Big mob of grandchildren and grandson and baby ones too – three babies – new babies. But I love them – I’m their grandfather. Sometimes they’re homesick “Oh we’ll go to Kiripi outstation – we don’t like to sit down around here Yuendumu, we like to go� they’re always asking me – little kids “Hey, we’ll go now to Cockatoo� – they call (the outstation) Cockatoo Creek. That’s the creek you know, Cockatoo Creek. Lots of names – Mt Denison – that’s whitefella way and Aboriginal way is Cockatoo Creek and Kiripi.
(We live there) because we like bush and I learnt to live out bush – that’s why I like outstation. Because I was living on a cattle station – that’s why I been make outstation for me - me and my family and all the kids, children. We’ve got everything coming up slowly like shower room, bathroom, toilet room and we’ve got a little shed for washing clothes. We always been take ‘em all the kids for school, at Mt Allan and Yuendumu. The government, they been give money all the time because we been do the right thing for kids for school. We always bring them to school early. In the afternoon we take them out to Kiripi outstation – that’s the way I been grow up all my family.
We’ve got to talk about everything – new houses. We want to be - the community, we want to be supported. We need a lot of house for Yuendumu, because some houses are crowded – we’ve got to get new houses. Because they live in one house – they can’t fit – too much family. They’re stuck like …when all the dogs camping outside - that’s why they’re squashed – can’t fit in all the family.
They're going to put new houses. Maybe my kids are going to get them you know? We’ve got to live in outstation me and my wife but all the kids they’ve got to get those new houses.
I’m living at an old tin house near Harry Dixon’s place (in Yuendumu) just for a little while because I’ve got to move back when our bore’s fixed. I’m out for water, trying to push all the council – I’m trying to push them but they tell me “Next time, oh maybe next week�. That’s why I’m really worried about water. It’s the main one. If they put ‘em I’ll move back out with my family. So that’s why I’ve got to go back and ask them – maybe all the government – for more houses. We need maybe two houses for start on the outstation.
Ngurra means camp - the Aboriginal way, for Warlpiri mob and Anmatyerre, another language, we call ‘em mara. That’s Anmatyerre. I’ve got two languages I can speak – Anmatyerre and Warlpiri. Because in the old times they’ve been living together – Warlpiri, Anmatyerre in this country. Ngurra ngajuku, that means mine. Ngajuku ngurra outstation Kiripi. For my wife and kids. That’s all I can know.
Ruth is a senior woman at Yuendumu. She was born at Yuendumu and lived and worked at Mt Allan Station after her father passed away. Ruth has two children. Ruth is a well known painter with Warlukurlangu Artists. Ruth gave some of her interview in Warlpiri which has been translated into English below. Some Warlpiri has however been kept in the record of her interview. Check the glossary for translations.
Yuwayi. Nyampurlaju Yurntumurla karnalu nyina, nyampurla yuwarlirla ngaju-nyanu karna wangkami. Nyinami karnalu family nyampurla karnalu nyinami nyarnumpa. Long time kujalpa nyanu nyinaja nyuruwarnu patu langu kujajuku yujukurla nyinajalpa yujukurla wiyi warlunarli nyinaja. Yuwarliwangurnalu warringiyi yujukurla wiyi. Nyampurla ngurrangka Yuendumurla. Yuwayi, kujalku jalangu wangkami nyampu.
Yes, we live at this place here, Yuendumu. This house here is the one I’m talking about. My family, we live here together. In the old days we used to live in humpies in this country. We had no houses; we stayed in my grandfather’s humpy with him. This is home in Yuendumu. Yes, that’s the one I’m talking about today.
Yujuku is ngurrju. Windbreak – make windbreak – ngurrju yangka jiti-pan (with sheets of tin) are really good. Sometimes yuwarliji (houses) – too much open one you know? Humpy ngurrju, we can put windbreak, might be leaves – make ngurrju-nyayirni kuja piya (really good like that). Yapa like yujuku, like humpy.
We make wind break, leaf – mulga leaves and witchetty leaves and tree – everything we get and we make ngurrju-nyayirni yuntaju (really good windbreak). And warluku (for fire), fire outside sometimes, we make windbreak, warluku and we make damper, kuyu (meat)…tea…and kangaroo…, ngurrju-nyayirni– we can sit down with windbreak.
Nyinami karnalu (we sit down) one place here. We look after old people, ngula piya (like that), yuwayi. And sometimes sick one too. We can only go for hunting Toyotarla (in a Toyota) or carngka (or in a car). Long time (ago) alright, only footwalk, I was really good one my legs, to do hunting.
Yuwayi sometimes, sometime we just sit down only Lucy and Ena and me. Lucy and Ena are staying there (Old People’s Home) and me and Yuna are sleeping here, yuwarli nyampuju (in this house here). And my son’s inside and young people – Yuna’s two sons sleeping and these two – Natasha and her husband.
Toilet blocks up, toilet blocked up and shower and problems are really wiri (big) – big ones. Stove is broken – funny one, no handle, everything lawa, broken one nyayirni (really). Stove and doors – open ones, took all the handles, some people get them out from another door. And stove punku, fridge punku and no carpets – inside punku. And washing machine ngajuku (mine), punku again. Yeah no good, punku.
They should make new houses. Government waja (people at the meeting said), they don't like government they don’t like them - lawa (nothing). They should put new house. Yuwayi. Government don’t do it proper way - lawa. They don’t like. Lawa. They just talk, only meetings.
(I'd like my house to have) Fan, carpets inside, yard - really good one, look at this yard, really rubbish one - make it good one. The government can make houses too – new ones. And bathroom ngurrju and stove. That’s why we sleep outside, more better. Inside’s punku – too many cockroaches.
Francis was one of the founders of Warlpiri Media and starred in its most well known production 'Bush Mechanics' and more recently in 'Aboriginal Rules’.
Home means where we settle in and sit down, this is our country here. Long time they put people to settlements… some of these houses have been here for 50 years like Donkey houses, Nomad house and Yapatula house. Some people, they grew up living in humpies and then they were taught how to live in houses. I grew up living in houses. I used to go to the teacher’s house and look at his house and say ‘Oh yes, I should have a house like this one when I grow up’. You know I’d look at it…I used to live with relatives in humpies. Humpies are really good because you don’t have to go out there and clean it and wash the plates and all that – you just hang all the billy cans on the fork. And old people used to make a bed out of wood away from the dogs and away from the snakes. Plus it’s good to live in a humpy because you don’t have to use electricity because you use firewood for cooking and all that. People used to just get a shelter and they’d get a bucket of water and just cool the sand down from the heat and they just sleep in the cool breeze.
I don’t think the right sort of house (are built for yapa), yapa should look into that. We should have yapa consultants here. We know more about this country whether it’s high ground or low levels or sometimes water comes to these houses when we are flooded. We haven’t got a stilt house here, you know, the upstairs house. We should be having those. Out here in summer snakes come out and they like to live in the cool area. I had a few snakes in my house.
We haven’t got a good plumber – like resident plumber. We have to get plumbers from town. It costs too much money to bring it out here. Not only that, but electricity workers too. Some of the houses they walk – walk means shift around because the earth is not strong enough, sometime they collapse. Especially for the sewage pipelines – we’ve got those trees, they grow through the pipe and they squeeze it. Out here the community don’t know how to look after houses because of crowded families in the one house - not enough houses. Some of the people are saying, “We’ve had enough of living in town, we want to go back to our homelands, the trouble is our own houses� but it's hard to get houses at the outstation because there’s no bores and there’s no electricity out there to establish it. It’s really hard. Where I’m living we’re finding it really hard because we’ve got so many animals in our community too like horses, donkeys and plus we’ve got a lot of dogs. Like crowded again like people – got our own dog each. We haven’t got a vet out here to stop all of those from breeding. There’s so many cockroaches, mouse living in the houses and they’re ruining the house too because sometimes they chew all those electricity rubbers and tubes you know.
Governments are getting strong on those houses. There’s one down the corner here – they just finished building it and somebody just burnt it on fire. That’s why government don’t want to put more houses until we get realistic about how to look after houses.
A long time I got taught how to look after house and clean the house. In the school now they haven’t got manual arts and domestic studies to teach those young people how to do working on sewing machines and carpentry and plumbing and housing and mechanical.
Mortgages are really no, because people can’t hardly keep up with the rent. If I’m a royalty man, yes I can put something in towards my mortgage but at the moment I’m struggling and finding it really hard to pay my tax too. Where else am I going to get paid? We’ve got to look after our communities out there because they are struggling.
Yeah I’ve got a house but I’ve got to look after it and I have to pay rent too on a certain time to keep up. I know it’s a council house but I want to make it a little bit interesting, where I can store my things away and put a little garage there and make a little table where I’m learning to use computer.
Ned is a Warlpiri man and Traditional Owner. He works as a receptionist at Yuendumu Health Clinic, working at the Men's reception desk and also on the Men’s Night Patrol. He has lived in Yuendumu all his life and is a father to five children. Prior to his work at the Health Clinic he was a plant operator and supervisor.
I live here in Yuendumu and I’ve got a house. I live in Ti-Tree lot 600 and that house – that fence has never been put up since 2002 and half my painting on the wall inside the room are not even finished. I tried to tell the council that my house has never been finished but I still never got my house done. I’m a TO (traditional owner) of this place. Every house here belongs to the land trust – it doesn’t belong to any organisation.
Over the years we’ve had CEO's and so-called housing managers or project officers or carpenters and that. They never really did a good job in this community. That’s the problem with this community – they send out all these people. They get payed maybe $30-$40 an hour to fix something. You’ve got Aboriginal housing that have been built out here and the measurements are all different – they are shoddily designed. Nobody doesn’t come and check them like a building inspector or anything. Everybody’s really fed up with this sort of thing but we can’t say nothing because the council’s supposed to be – well they collect all the rent money. They are supposed to put it all back into the community for housing projects but as far as I’m concerned I’ve never seen that happen yet. That’s why we get a lot of run down from media – they say we trash houses… mainstream media they say we trash houses. I reckon we’ve got the wrong people working at the wrong places. We’ve got to have blokes that are committed to helping Aboriginal people.
Some people here, they’ve never been educated how to look after houses. They’re just pulled straight from a humpy to a house without no consultation, no how to run a house properly. They say there’s some people out here to learn people that but out here I don’t see – nothing like that happens like that here.
They never consulted anyone on these new houses they building out here they just send in excavators, loaders straight away. We didn’t even know they were building them – nobody gave them authority to build them. We’re supposed to have a consultation before you build a house and…they just came along and said ‘Oh we’re building a house here and that’s it’.
We’ve got to try and put a stop to it so we can work out things properly, not just rush in because we’ve still got a lot of family problems out here and if you build a house in the wrong area for so-and-so mob they’ll just wreck that house and they’ll light it next drunken night. You’ve got to talk to the mob that lives in there in that community and they’ll say ‘It’s better in that area’ like that.
Ngurra – this is our country this one. In Aboriginal law, this ground is mine. I don’t want him (government) to claim nothing here – I don’t go to his country over there next door and claim what I want – it won't work. We’ve got our own beliefs. We like to go back to our country. Like Russians they’ve got Russia and Chinese got China and they’re not allowed to go across next door and do things. Just like that – I’m not allowed to go down to the Watson mob’s or the Egan’s (families in Yuendumu) – I’ve got to ask permission from them – simple as that. That’s how it is in Aboriginal law – we respect one another. We respect that that bloke and his family and that clan owns culture and law – that’s his, he’s got his own jukurrpa and that – you know Dreaming. I’ve got mine – like mine’s the honey ant see, that’s like here and Papunya – that’s the same one that come down here from Yuelamu. That’s mine. I’m the keeper of this land – me, from my grandfather. I can’t go to (another man's) country and dig a hole or chop a tree down. I’ve got to go and ask him for permission. It’s just like Pine Gap. You go in there you’ve got no say – he’ll shoot you hey? Simple as that.
We’ll just see what comes out of this election. It looks like everybody’s holding on to something – Federal Government – and they don’t know who’s who so – I don’t know, maybe everything might just change back to normal. The Centrelink mob was here (for a meeting) and they’re going back to see their boss – that’ll be after the election or something. They mightn’t return.