Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

and it is a key fact, Senator Scullion, that this is the model that your government put on the table, your model that we have all agreed to, your model that everyone has signed up to.

So, both governments set about formulating SIHIP under an alliance model. On 12 April 2008, just after we came into government, the Chief Minister and Minister Macklin launched the $647 million landmark housing project that covers 73 remote communities and some urban areas. As we know, SIHIP would deliver 750 new houses, over 230 new houses to replace derelict structures and upgrade 2,500 existing homes. It would also provide essential infrastructure to support the new housing developments, and better conditions in town camps. At that time the program took in 3,500 houses. Absolutely nothing has changed. Each and every one of those commitments holds true today.

The preliminaries for SIHIP were completed on schedule. A commercial manager was engaged in March 2008. The alliance participants were contracted and awarded the tender in October 2008. There are three alliances: New Future Alliance, Territory Alliance and Earth Connect Alliance.

In November 2008, the alliance groups for the Tiwi Islands, Groote Eylandt and Tennant Creek packages of work began engaging with the communities in question. The programs at those locations are now in full swing, with over $145 million worth of work already being delivered. The next tranche of $355 million is being scoped for 47 communities and 25 town camps, so that will be $500 million in housing programs—not all new houses: upgrades, refurbishment and infrastructure by the end of 2009. On the Tiwi Islands, with the first phase of work, overcrowding will be reduced by around 60 per cent. The program will achieve this by building 29 new houses for 170 people, putting extensions on 25 existing houses so that they can accommodate a further 50 people and refurbishing 155 homes. Ninety houses will be constructed on the Tiwi Islands over the life of SIHIP. We have set an Indigenous employment target on the Tiwi projects of 20 per cent—something that has never been done in the life of Indigenous housing upgrades and builds in this country before.

The Territory Alliance has already employed 10 local people at Nguiu, and another 15 are being trained for work. That is an outcome I would have thought Senator Scullion would applaud.