High court overturns NT housing policy which tripled rent in some remote Indigenous communities | Indigenous Australians

A public housing policy that sees tenants in the Northern Territory charge a fixed rental fee based on the number of bedrooms in their home has been declared illegal by the high court following a three-year challenge from residents from two remote Indigenous communities.

The Remote Rental Framework, phased in by the NT government between December 2021 and February 2023, has increased rent for two-thirds of Aboriginal tenants living in remote communities in the NT by up to 200%, with more than 5,300 homes affected.

_{Sign up: AÜ Breaking News email}

On Wednesday, the high court unanimously found that the former NT Labor government failed to provide affected tenants with procedural fairness as required under the Housing Act.

Summary of the decision It said the lease changes “came into effect despite any provisions to the contrary contained in existing leases” and were made “without notice to any tenant or invitation to any tenant to make a submission regarding the proposed lease change.”

“Accordingly, there was a judicial error in making each decision,” the summary said. “Given this conclusion, it is unnecessary for the Court to consider whether the decisions were legally unreasonable.”

The plaintiffs, Asher Badari, Ricane Galaminda and Lofty Nadjamerrek, from Gunbalanya in West Arnhem Land, and Carmelena Tilmouth, from Laramba, 230 km north of Alice Springs, first filed the lawsuit against the territory government in September 2022.

Outside court, lawyer Dan Kelly of Remote Aboriginal Rights Lawyers Australia, which represents the plaintiffs, said the NT government should properly consult with remote tenants and communities.

“The Northern Territory government needs to go back and talk to tenants, who in turn need to talk to communities and decide what a fair and affordable rental system would look like,” he said.

“They thought they could implement this policy without taking into account the affected people and their views, and that’s where they were wrong.

“The court upheld that strong presumption at common law, a very old protection for all citizens: our government cannot exercise authority over your rights without speaking to you.”

The total value of increased rents is $9.7 million a year, Kelly said.

An NT government policy briefing document The consultation is alleged to have taken place since 2018. The document states that the framework is intended to be “easier to understand and manage for tenants” and that an income-based model used to determine public housing rents in other parts of Australia is “difficult to understand for tenants” and “difficult to manage due to large geographical distances and changing household dynamics”.

Territory housing, local government and community development minister Steve Edgington said the NT government had accepted the high court ruling on the Remote Rental Framework introduced by the previous government and said “all public housing tenants, remote and urban”, must still pay rent.

He said the NT government was “considering options” to ensure a valid rental framework was in place for remote tenants.

In 2022, the NT government canceled $68 million in rent arrears to remote Indigenous communities after a community-led legal challenge claimed housing conditions were “inhumane”.