'Normalising' Aboriginal Housing in the Kimberley: Challenges at the interface of new public management approaches

The abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and the national government reform agenda of the mid-2000s brought about mainstreaming of Indigenous programs and opened them up to new public management (NPM) principles. This paper discusses this change, particularly in relation to the implementation in the Kimberley region of Western Australia of mainstreamed agreements on remote Indigenous housing between the Australian Government and State and Territory governments. These have been designed to provide new housing and renovate existing housing in seriously overcrowded remote Aboriginal communities. These agreements shifted Australian Government funding and responsibility for housing from Indigenous community-controlled organisations to State governments. This paper explores the normalisation or mainstreaming of housing policy in this NPM environment, through a case study of the impact of this policy on one organisation, Marra Worra Worra (MWW), and its remote Kimberley communities.