Aboriginal housing programs begin 1967-1980
From the late 1960s, Commonwealth and NSW governments began to focus specifically on housing programs for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people continued to experience barriers to accessing mainstream public housing.
In May 1967 there was a successful referendum to change the Australian Constitution. This meant the Commonwealth could make laws with respect to Aboriginal people () and could fund housing programs specifically for Aboriginal people.
Soon after, the Report from the NSW Joint Parliamentary Committee upon Aborigines Welfare () was released. It made many recommendations, including that no more houses be built on reserves, that ‘every effort be made to encourage Aborigines to leave reserves’ and that the NSW Housing Commission become responsible for housing for Aboriginal people ().
The Aborigines Act 1969 (NSW) () fulfilled some of the Committee’s recommendations. It dissolved the Aborigines Welfare Board. The reserves, which were owned by the Board, were made Crown reserves for ‘the use of Aborigines’ and were later transferred to the Aboriginal Lands Trust (for more information about housing on these lands, see SUB0305).
Also from 1969, the Commonwealth funded a ‘Housing for Aborigines’ program, administered in NSW by the Housing Commission (). These houses were leased to Aboriginal people in accordance with public housing conditions (). As part of this program, the Housing Commission developed a policy for ‘Resettlement of Families to Areas of Better Opportunity’. The policy involved Child Welfare Officers assessing families for resettlement and moving them to metropolitan areas like Sydney and Newcastle (). The Housing for Aborigines dwellings were ‘predominantly suburban housing … much of it located on large public estates in western Sydney, like those at Mount Druitt and Green Valley’ ().
A year after the Aborigines Act began, the Minister reported:
Wherever possible, Aboriginal housing in a particular town is scattered to prevent large congregations of Aboriginal families in one district … In the past Aboriginal housing was the preserve of the specialist administration and little encouragement was given by the community to Aborigines to apply for standard accommodation. Many were under the misapprehension that the Aborigines were incapable, generally, of occupying housing. These fears are being dispelled rapidly and increased numbers have been filing requests to both the Housing Commission of New South Wales and to private landlords’ ().
This policy of scattering Aboriginal housing continued throughout the 1970s and was later described by a Parliamentary committee as follows:
The Commission applies an assimilationist policy in placing Aboriginal tenants in homes … in towns and suburbs under the principle known either as ‘pepper-potting’ or ‘scatterisation’, - trying to put not more than 2 or 3 families in one street. ().
Submissions to that committee describe the personal impact of this ‘scatterisation’ policy (), which has also been described as contributing to overcrowding as families resisted the policy by sharing residences ().
In 1971, the Aborigines Advisory Council that had been created by the Aborigines Act was set up (). It had nine Aboriginal members. Its main areas for advice were ‘land, reserves, housing and infrastructure for Aboriginal communities’ ().
The Aboriginal Family Voluntary Resettlement Scheme also began in 1971. The scheme was funded by the Commonwealth Government with staffing assistance provided by the NSW Government (). Initially, its purpose was to assist families who volunteered to move from Bourke to Newcastle (), but it was expanded to people migrating from many parts of NSW to Newcastle, Albury, Tamworth, Wagga Wagga and Orange ().
There are differing views about the scheme and its impact on Aboriginal people. Some have criticised it for promoting assimilation (), devaluing community and culture (), creating resentment among Aboriginal families already living in host towns () and coercing Aboriginal families to move (). However others, including those involved in the scheme’s establishment, have argued that it was largely controlled by Aboriginal people () and the scheme assisted families who were moving anyway ().
Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, large numbers of Aboriginal people ‘lived in informal settlements in makeshift homes, slept in the open or camped on vacant public or private land’ (, ). For example, in 1971, 20% of Aboriginal people in the North-West of NSW lived in a ‘shed, tent, garage or humpy’ (). The ‘Housing for Aborigines’ housing, which was dedicated public housing for Aboriginal people, was lacking ‘at centres of Aboriginal population’ () and there continued to be significant barriers to accessing mainstream public housing.
During this period, Aboriginal families were refused public housing for being ‘undesirable tenants’ on the basis of their housekeeping standards and of the Tenancy Advisory Committee’s assessment of their ability to care for Housing Commission property (). Tenancy Advisory Committees were established to approve applications and had representatives of the Ex-Services League, a women’s group, Local Government and local Members of Parliament (). A 1972 Allocation Procedures Memo for the Houses for Aborigines program confirms that families rejected by the committees could not be allocated town housing and could be allocated ‘Reserve Type Housing Only’ ().
Aboriginal representation on Tenancy Advisory Committees was strongly resisted by some Senior Departmental officers (). In 1976, the Federal Minister sought Aboriginal peoples’ participation on these committees, but the NSW Minister rejected this request ().
The extent of the Government’s monitoring of Aboriginal families at this time is shown by Instruction No. 386 of 25 September 1972. It includes an extensive list of categories of families who were to be monitored and subject to casework and counselling ‘in order to promote the State’s programme for Aboriginal advancement’ (). As the NSW Government has acknowledged:
The impact of this intensive case working of Aboriginal families on the removal of children is yet to be analysed, however it seems likely that this level of intervention would have brought the Child Welfare Office’s attention to many more children who were inadequately housed than previously would have been the case ().
In 1972, the newly elected Commonwealth Whitlam Government introduced a policy of self-determination (). The policy shift was hailed by some as a landmark victory for Aboriginal peoples, but others suggest the self-determination policy approach was not actually effective at encouraging culturally appropriate housing and contributed to later challenges in public housing (; see also SUB0282).
In 1979, the Aboriginal Rental Housing Program began. It was a separate program funded by the Commonwealth under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and administered by State Governments (). In NSW this funded the Housing for Aborigines program, referred to above.
The NSW Government would later admit in its submission to the Bringing Them Home Report that the Housing for Aborigines program promoted assimilationist policies that may have been harmful ().