Is homeownership the answer? Housing tenure and indigenous Australians in remote (and settled) areas

This paper examines the relevance of recently floated policy ideas for extending homeownership to remote Aboriginal Australians. It argues that while the housing tenure system in more densely settled Australia is dominated by homeownership, this is not, and cannot realistically be expected to be, the case in remote areas. The paper uses data from the 2001 Census, organized by remoteness geography, to demonstrate the different character of the housing tenure system in remote Australia. The paper argues that homeownership in remote Aboriginal communities is a somewhat unrealistic policy goal, given the underlying income and employment status of Indigenous people in these communities. The paper also argues that there are better measures of Indigenous housing need and disadvantage in Australia than low homeownership rates. It briefly reports on one past failed experiment in Queensland to introduce homeownership to a remote Aboriginal community.