Reconciling Policy Tensions on the Frontlines of Indigenous Housing Provision in Australia: Reflexivity, Resistance and Hybridity

Abstract

In Australia, significant recent reforms reposition Indigenous housing provision and management in remote and town camp communities under the mainstream public housing model. Two competing discourses surround this shift: a federal discourse of standardisation and state discourses of local responsiveness centred on the introduction of new community engagement processes into Indigenous public housing. This paper reports on qualitative research into the micro-scale of policy implementation to highlight policy-to-practice translation on the frontlines of Indigenous housing. Based on interviews with Indigenous housing stakeholders, this paper argues the capacity to support locally responsive housing management is problematic under the current arrangements. The analytical framework of realist governmentality reveals frontline housing professionals' role in the local resolution of tensions between federal and state policy levers. A focus on agent reflexivity and resistance on the frontline assists in capturing the dynamic (hybrid) identity of Indigenous public housing, as an atypical Australian example of hybridity in social housing.

Keywords::

• Governmentality
• housing governance
• housing policy
• Indigenous housing policy
• resident involvement
• social housing

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on empirical data from an Australian Research Council linkage project titled More Than a Roof Overhead: Meeting the Need for a Sustainable Housing System in Remote Indigenous Communities [LP 0883615]. The author thanks the town camp residents of Halls Creek (Western Australia) and Alice Springs (Northern Territory), the Northern Territory Department of Housing, Local Government and Regional Services, the Western Australian Department of Housing and Works and Tangentyere Council for their participation. The author also thanks the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Notes

¹ The term ‘social housing’ is used herein to encompass subsidised rental housing for low-income households, and includes ‘public’ and not-for-profit ‘community’ housing.

² Such as through tenant–government partnerships (e.g. Tenant-Management Organisations in the UK, and Resident/Tenant Management Corporations in the USA and Canada) (Sousa & Quarter, 2005).

³ Organisational hybridity may also include, for instance, changes to housing organisations' financial dependencies, governance structures, operational priorities or services (Mullins et al., 2012).

⁴ ‘Harnessing the mainstream’ is one of six principles for intergovernmental collaboration in Indigenous Affairs, outlined in The National Framework of Principles for Delivering Services to Indigenous Australians and signed by the Council of Australian Governments in 2004 (COAG, 2004).

⁵ NTER (also ‘The Intervention’) included income management (quarantining of welfare payments for essentials), increased police presence, a ban on pornography and alcohol, the suspension of the permit system which gave Indigenous communities control over land access. And perhaps most notoriously, it required the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (HREOC, 2008), thereby denying Indigenous people access to its complaints procedures.

⁶ SHAs shied away from involvement in remote and town camp areas despite concurrent federal efforts to expand public housing for Indigenous people.

⁷ ICHOs were required to collect rents to assist with asset maintenance and other recurrent costs, notwithstanding Indigenous claims to the land (e.g. freehold, leasehold or inalienable Aboriginal title).

⁸ Failure to enter into leases (usually of 40 years) revokes community access to funding for essential services, including housing.

⁹ ‘Sorry business’ refers to ceremonial acts of mourning and grieving carried out at the loss of a relative and/or community member. These may impact housing management, for instance the house in which the deceased lived must be vacated and the uncle of the deceased has the authority to decide who can reside in the house once it is cleansed (the family will not return) and all relatives move to a ‘sorry camp’ for an extended period (2 weeks to 3 months) (Porter, 2009b).

¹⁰ This research endeavoured to actualise best practice for ethical Indigenous sector research (including the importance of Indigenous voices in these endeavours), but recognises ongoing contestation surrounding the rights of Indigenous Australians to approve in-community research with or about them (AIATSIS, 2010; NHMRC, 2003; NHMRC & ARC, 2007; Sherwood, 2010). Ethics approval was provided by the Human Research Ethics Committee at RMIT University.