$70m Plan Aims To Turn The Alice's Camps Into Suburbs
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday March 14, 2007
THE town camps of Alice Springs will be landscaped, paved and filled with suburban-style homes as part of a $70 million attempt by the Federal Government to clean up outlying indigenous areas.
The Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough, said yesterday the camps would be converted from "hellholes" into "normal suburbs"."The upgrades to the town camps will not be second-rate. Normal town standards will apply and they will operate under normal local government arrangements," he said.The Federal Government has spent $20 million to improve conditions in the Alice's 21 camps but an extra $50 million will be available if people living there give up their leases on the Crown land.In return for them handing over leases to the Northern Territory Government, the Federal Government will pay for the transformation of the camps.The Territory Government agreed on Monday to the plan, which also provides money for two commercially operated accommodation sites for people visiting Alice Springs for short periods.The operators will have to comply with a number of conditions, including maintaining law and order and keeping them alcohol-free.Mr Brough said the suburbs would be the same as others in Alice Springs and that there would be no discrimination in the kind of housing and services provided for indigenous and non-indigenous people.The announcement follows the release of a report commissioned by the Federal Government into indigenous housing which recommended that houses built with public money in future should be constructed only in built-up areas with basic services such as schools and hospitals.The Labor MP Warren Snowdon, whose electorate includes Alice Springs, said the money should be spent to improve conditions for indigenous people regardless of who held the leases.
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
