Alice Town Camps Can Keep Leases
The Age
Thursday April 19, 2007
RESIDENTS OF Alice Springs' troubled and poverty-stricken town camps will no longer have to give up control of their land before the Government agrees to clean up the camps, following a policy U-turn by federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough.
The Government last month said it would spend $50 million, on top of around $20 million already pledged, to make the 18 town camps that encircle Alice Springs into normal suburbs. The money would also go towards building two temporary accommodation centres for visitors who come to town for things such as medical treatment but are now sleeping rough. At the time, Mr Brough was adamant that camp residents had to give up their leases - without compensation - because they did not own the land in the same way that traditional owners did but had been granted the leases after squatting on the land.Yesterday, the minister changed his stance, saying the residents could keep their leases. But they would still have to sub-lease the residential parts of the town camps to the Northern Territory Government, on terms of at least 99 years, before Canberra would agree to make the towns into normal suburbs, he said in a toughly-worded letter sent to the Tangentyere Council, which represents town-camp residents. According to council spokesman David Donald, Mr Brough's offer was delivered just minutes before a meeting of some 300 camp residents, which yesterday voted to reject the $50 million offer because of "the coercive condition . . . that the housing associations give up their leases in exchange for access to basic services and housing". Mr Donald welcomed Mr Brough's change of heart but said residents wanted a guarantee that, under the upgrade plan, they would have a direct say over housing management as well as more detail about how the sub-leases would work. Mr Donald slammed Mr Brough for giving the camps one month to agree to the new deal, saying it was too short a time to consult with 18 communities. But in his letter to the council, Mr Brough stuck to his one-month deadline, saying he did not require agreement from all camps to go ahead and that he would reallocate the funds to other indigenous programs if the time frame wasn't met. Mr Brough told ABC radio he was confident the camps would sign up. "We got involved with this because it is a human tragedy and I think it would be a great disappointment if any of the town camp communities elected not to be involved," he said.Before Mr Brough's about-turn, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma, had warned town campers in a letter read out at yesterday's meeting that it was "not appropriate for government to withhold services and support unless you agree to their proposals. In fact, to do so could amount to coercion and it could place the government in breach of human rights standards."Warren Snowdon, Labor MP for the NT seat of Lingiari, said the insistence on the sub-lease was "nothing but blackmail" and camps did not like the 99-year-lease proposal.
© 2007 The Age
