Some bitter, others sweet
01.01.2009
IN the first three Northern Territory communities to receive new houses and refurbishments under the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, a mixture of gratitude and resentment greeted the release of yesterday's review into the program.
On Groote Eylandt and the Tiwi Islands, there is frenetic activity as the housing alliances implementing the program work flat-out to make up for lost time.
But in Tennant Creek, community members remain bitter that new houses they were promised will not be delivered.
Since The Australian last month exposed the extent to which bureaucratic wastage and overspending on consultancy were crippling the SIHIP, the federal government has found new impetus to take control of the program and ensure it does not fail.
In the Tiwi Islands over the past two weeks, building crews have been demolishing houses and removing asbestos, preparing to build some of the 90 houses to be delivered before the wet season sets in.
``What has happened in the past two weeks has been quite amazing,'' said Nguiu community member John Naden. ``There is work going on, dozens of houses are being demolished, cleaned, they are employing Tiwis to help them. It's very good.''
Confirmation the federal and Northern Territory governments were ``taking the housing shortage very seriously'' was yesterday welcomed by the local council in charge of Groote Eylandt.
But East Arnhem Shire Council chief executive Ian Bodill expressed concern yesterday that the wet season could foil the best-laid plans.
``While I have concerns that the respective governments might be rushing to beat the wet season, we will be thankful for whatever can be achieved before then,'' he said.
One with a special interest in a real housing outcome is Libby Morgan, chairman of the Machado-Joseph Disease Foundation, which has its headquarters on Groote Eylandt. Ms Morgan, an occupational therapist who grew up on the island, said the sufferers of MJD, the biggest concentration of whom are on Groote, were desperately in need of purpose-built accommodation.
MJD is an inherited autosomal dominant disorder that attacks the brain, and in a short time an affected person loses control of muscle and body functions and is wheelchair-bound. There is no cure for the disease and people who get it take up to 20 years todie.
``We are really appreciative of the effort that has been put into this housing project,'' Ms Morgan said.
However, the Tennant Creek community remains angry about the failure of the SIHIP. The remote township 500km north of Alice Springs was among the first to be chosen under the joint Northern Territory and federal government housing program announced more than two years ago.
But there is still no sign of any major works or construction in the town's indigenous camps.
Tennant Creek-based Phillips Earthmoving Contractors -- left in limbo for months over an unresolved tender for a multi-million-dollar civil works contract under the SIHIP package -- was recently told it had been unsuccessful.
Sylvia Phillips, whose husband Jim is the company director, yesterday said she was told by New Future Alliance, the Darwin-based building industry consortium chosen by the NT government to work with the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation to deliver on the housing promises, said no explanation was provided.
``They could not even debrief all those companies who spent time and money battling bureaucracy to tender, and when I asked who won the tender, I was told `nobody had won the tender yet','' Ms Phillips said yesterday.
This has left a bitter taste for local firms and subcontractors in line to deliver promised civil works such as power, sewerage, water and roads.
``It is a mess, but we all hope now that the SIHIP report has come out, that the problems will be fixed.''
Other Tennant Creek residents such as Mick Adams, who wrote to the town's local newspaper last week, complain of how the Labor government took $30m of stand-alone money, initially provided by the Howard government in agreement with the Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation for town camp leases, and put the money into SIHIP.
