Indigenous Housing Policy in Australia: Impact of Colonisation on Indigenous People

This report discusses the impact of colonisation on indigenous people in Australia, specifically focusing on the indigenous housing policy. It covers topics such as land rights, housing tenure, social housing policies, and housing quality.

INDIGENOUS HOUSING POLICY IN AUSTRALIA

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Colonisation is defined economical phenomena in which large scale population do
movements where the migrants have strong link with their ancestor. In simple words colonisation
is described as the act of establishing of colonies. The present report is based on impact of
colonisation on indigenous group of people. The report will discuss specifically about the
indigenous housing policy in Australia.
MAIN BODY
Indigenous people are know as group of people that have distinct social and cultural
groups which share collective ancestral ties with natural resource and land where they are living
from longer time. Due to colonisation many indigenous peoples worldwide has lost their land
and resources connection with their ancestor place and also lost their control over them. Along
with this, it has lead down the traditional structure and families (Hall and Hill, (2020)).
Moreover, schools has been build so that proper education can be given to such people which
has resulted in destroying education, cultures, language and identities of the communities. The
one of the key issues that has been faced by indigenous people am related to land right and their
control of resources they traditional hold. Land has not been just considered as an economic
assets and act as access to natural resources through farming and hunting. But in their culture
land has spiritual significance and control over it allow indigenous people to protect the
environment. Furthermore, international law allow the indigenous people to have control and
right to their homeland and to cultural practice which are related to territory.
It can be seen that government is trying to take control of indigenous land by using
various method for the motive of development. Moreover, safe and secure home with working
faculties is one of the most crucial support for the good well-being and health of Torres and
Aboriginal Strait islander people (Fisher, Friel and Baum, (2021)). The WHO in 2020 stated
that good environment include physical, chemical and biological factor and it does impact on
life expectancy, young child morality and family as well as community violence. Indigenous
Australian represent people that are homeless and looking for assistance for housing. Although
not having such policy can lead to social exclusion and disadvantage experience. The housing
policy include discussion on ownership, rent, quality and overcrowding factors.
The housing tenure of Australian housing policy describes about whether house has been
rented, occupied or owned under some arrangement. Although indigenous house is define as

dwelling in which 1 of the member living should belong to indigenous culture. The indigenous
adults need to almost 1 out of 3 home-owner as well as majority of the part should be on
mortgage and minor percentage of the property is owned. In addition to this, in case of 2 out of
3 members need to be renter and 34% should live in social housing and others in private
renters or has taken on rent from another landlord (Foster and Hall, (2021)). It has been found
that indigenous household mainly make use of social housing programs and common wealth
rent assistance. It due dace various issue like barriers in the housing market like discrimination
in cultural and historical pressures. Thus, due to such reason indigenous people are giving
more priority by housing assistance services so that good faculties can be provided to them as
well as such culture can be protected.
Government of Australia has also provided for social housing policies in which rental
dwelling has been provided to people that are unable to have access suitable rental
accommodation in the private sector by state authority. Although tenant satisfaction has been
measured by how it rates the condition of the rental flat and the amount of facilities available
and working within accommodation centre (Prout Quicke and Green, (2018)). Majority of the
people were satisfied more with community housing as compared to public rental facilitators.
Along with this, it has been found that most of the indigenous households stated that there room
needs are meet appropriately. However, at time of pandemic people was not satisfied with
amenities like number of bed, privacy and thermal comfort.
Types of Social housing available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
TYPE INDIGENOUS SPECIFIC
HOUSING
OWNER OR MANAGED
Public housing No State or territory government
Community housing No Community organization
Indigenous community
housing
Yes Aboriginal or Torres Strait
Islander organization
(Indigenous housing, 2021).
Furthermore, the housing quality is related with environmental health and it may affect in both
positive and negative way. It does affects range of health indicator like poor quality, lack of

electricity and drinking water as well as bad hygiene faculties. All these factors contributes to
poor health and welfare. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people mainly lives in permanent or
improvised room facilities. Although the rent house have fixed walls, roof and doors as well as
proper bathroom facilities (Ellinghaus and Healy, (2018)). Thus, it has been made to provide
regular building materials and has been used for residential purpose. However, the main reason
for the poor condition of housing are inappropriate design for local climate condition and
cultural practice. The poor construction way and low class material has lead in bad condition of
dwellings.
Although the impact of Covid-19 are negative as it resulted in poor housing quality, increase in
the isolation so there was unavailability of rooms. Due to poor environmental condition it has
lead increasing level of depression and anxiety.
Moreover, Aboriginal and Toress Strait Islander act as environmental health practitioners and
provide for wide range of services to their communities like hygiene, repairs and maintenance,
resource management as well as disposal of hazardous material (Habibis, Phillips and Phibbs,
(2019)). Such workers work together closely and get involved in community educations about
such matters with professionals of government agencies. Although the duty of such
practitioners is to checks on houses of the communities and to record the information. It also is
aware of the housing facilities in rural and urban area.
CONCLUSION
` From the above report it has been concluded that due to colonization many indigenous
people have lost their rights on the land as well as their culture has been diminished. Although
Austrian and International law has been concerned about the living area of these community
people. It has implemented housing policy which include quality of the house, rent and the
main purpose of this act was to provide dwell for the people that cannot afford to buy
accommodation.
Indigenous housing, 2021

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ellinghaus, K., & Healy, S. (2018). Micromobility, space, and Indigenous housing schemes in
Australia after world war II. Transfers. 8(2). 44-66.
Fisher, M., George, E., Friel, S., & Baum, F. (2021). Stakeholder perceptions of policy
implementation for Indigenous health and cultural safety: A study of Australia's ‘Closing
the Gap’policies. Australian Journal of Public Administration. 80(2). 239-260.
Foster, T., & Hall, N. L. (2021). Housing conditions and health in Indigenous Australian
communities: current status and recent trends. International Journal of Environmental
Health Research. 31(3). 325-343.
Habibis, D., Phillips, R., & Phibbs, P. (2019). Housing policy in remote Indigenous
communities: how politics obstructs good policy. Housing Studies. 34(2)..252-271.
Hall, N. L. & Hill, P. S. (2020). Water and health interlinkages of the sustainable development
goals in remote Indigenous Australia. NPJ Clean Water. 3(1). 1-7.
Moodie, N. & et.al., (2021). Roadmap to recovery: Reporting on a research taskforce supporting
Indigenous responses to COVID‐19 in Australia. Australian Journal of Social Issues.
56(1). 4-16..
Prout Quicke, S., & Green, C. (2018). “Mobile (nomadic) cultures” and the politics of mobility:
Insights from Indigenous Australia. Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers. 43(4). 646-660.
Online
Indigenous housing, 2021. [Online]. Available through
<https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-welfare/indigenous-housing>
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