The Minister for Indigenous Australians says the Northern Territory Government seemingly does not want to stick to the terms of a landmark remote housing agreement.
The $4 billion joint agreement between the Commonwealth and the NT Government, announced in 2024, aims to reduce overcrowding and improve housing quality in remote NT communities by delivering up to 2,700 houses over ten years.
However, there are concerns that many of these homes will not be built over the term of the agreement, with the NT recently asking to renegotiate parts of it.
The agreement enables First Nations organisations to have a seat at the table, with a steering committee made up of the land councils and Aboriginal Housing Northern Territory.
This week, Senator Lidia Thorpe tabled documents she said showed $330 million had not been delivered, and argued that the "Northern Territory government has provided no progress reports".
In response, Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy said the NT Government "wants to renegotiate an agreement", arguing it is "supposed to have 2,700 homes built" over the 10-year cycle — "270 a year".
"The Northern Territory Government wants to reduce that down to 1800 or maybe 1100 homes, if the Northern Territory is lucky," she said.
"At this particular point, the Northern Territory government want more money given to them from the agreement — they don't want to stick to the agreement.
"They want to remove a certain amount of money from it for administration and for the land, in terms of where the houses will be built, in terms of making sure the land is ready."
National Indigenous Times put questions to NT Housing Minister Steve Edgington, but he did not reply by the time of publication.
Earlier this year, public housing tenants from the remote Northern Territory Aboriginal community of Papunya/Warumpi, about 240 kilometres northwest of Mparntwe/Alice Springs, launched legal action against the Territory government, alleging it had "failed" to provide safe housing during periods of extreme heat.
Senator Thorpe told the ABC: "The Northern Territory government need to basically move over and the minister needs to step in and bypass, which she has the power to do, and fund these organisations directly."
"Then houses can be built immediately."
The Victorian Senator told a Darwin housing conference in May that Aboriginal people are "homeless on our own country," and argued overcrowded, insecure and unsafe housing was driving many of the issues experienced by First Nations communities, including disease, school absenteeism and limited employment opportunities.
The documents tabled also include correspondence from the steering committee to Senator McCarthy in September 2025, where they complained of a "lack of clear reporting from the Department and a reluctance to share data". They argued this "compromises the ability for shared decision-making".
They said they have been "asked by the Department to focus on short-term priorities", arguing they have been asked by the Department to develop a repairs and maintenance program — something "not tenable" without "considerable work being done within the Department".
"As we all know, the failings of the current responsive-only repairs and maintenance system have had serious consequences," the committee wrote.
"...recent and repeated comments by the Department around the lack of capacity to do anything more than business as usual makes us concerned that there is no long-term strategy or vision to drive reform."
The committee said the agreement represented an "incredible opportunity to change the way government does business out in remote communities, ultimately improving the lives of our members and constituents".
However, they argued: "We have diminishing confidence that the Department has a long-term strategic vision or have the capacity and willingness to change the way they currently do business, and to meet the commitments in the Agreement which aim to improve a system that is failing Aboriginal people living in remote communities in the Northern Territory."
