The Great Aboriginal Housing Scandal of Cummeragunja

This is the Aboriginal settlement of Cummeragunja located on the New South Wales side of the Murray River, near the border with Victoria. It’s only a small village with a population of around 100 people, of which 20 are children. Cummeragunja has a problem: it’s quite literally falling apart. Thank you to the viewer who sent this in. The town is owned (if that’s the right word) and managed by the Cummeragunja Local Aboriginal Land Council, one of around 120 Aboriginal land councils under the umbrella of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council.

The ABC recently did a piece on Cummeragunja titled, “Residents of historic village refuse to pay rent for crumbling homes.” They introduce the piece by saying, “In Cummeragunja, families live in decaying homes while children play on broken equipment.” Here’s a couple of the photos they included of the broken play equipment and the dilapidated basketball court.

The first question that comes to mind is: What happened to all the money? What happened to all the billions of dollars of taxpayer money that goes towards Aboriginal affairs every year in Australia? It either doesn’t filter through to the right places, or is tied up in bureaucratic limbo. Although, this is not particularly surprisingly when you read the headlines. For example, this one from the ABC from April this year: “Not one new home in Binjari where Albanese made $4 billion housing promise.” So you know, if $4 billion isn’t enough to build a single house, what hope does Cummeragunja have?

In the article, they show lots of pictures of a dilapidated settlement with sometimes ambiguous captions. For example, here’s a picture of a scruffy little dog with the caption, “Spongey is never far from Coke.” What does that even mean? Do they mean the soft drink, or the hard drug? To be fair, I don’t blame Spongey for taking some kind of stimulant. He must have lived a hard life. Of course, I jest. Coke is his owner. They state, “Coke Walker sleeps on a single bed in his lounge room. Coke says he stopped paying rent due to unaddressed maintenance issues.”

Referring to Mr. Walker, they state, “The 68-year-old stopped paying rent to the land council that runs the village a decade ago, claiming years of unaddressed maintenance issues. ‘There were problems from the start—broken sliding doors, no guttering, rotting carpets. Nothing was ever fixed.’ Coke says the issues existed when he moved in 14 years ago and have only gotten worse. Now, he only pays for electricity. ‘Just to keep the lights on.’ The home is infested with white ants. ‘I can hear them at night while I’m trying to sleep.’”

Look, I do feel for these people, but it begs the question: why is this community in such a state?

They interview a lady by the name of Dr. Geraldine Atkinson who is one of the board members of the Local Aboriginal Land Council. They note, “Geraldine Atkinson has defended the board’s management of the village.” Is she having a laugh? Has she looked outside? To be fair, she doesn’t even live in the village. The article states, “Geraldine Atkinson grew up in Cummeragunja but now lives in nearby Barmah.”

To be fair to her, she says the issue isn’t with a lack of desire, but rather, a lack of funding. They state, “Dr Atkinson acknowledges Cummera is in dire need of repairs but she defends the board’s management of the village, saying there is simply not enough funding. She says that with dwindling rent income, the board has limited options to help fix up homes.”

So basically, due to the poor conditions, people are choosing to stop paying the rent, resulting in less funding to fix the houses, leading to further decay. It’s a vicious cycle.

The article states, “the village has 23 houses, but six are abandoned and in disrepair. According to Council board members, only five households at Cummera are paying rent.” There is also other income, with the article noting, “Like all 120 NSW Aboriginal land councils, it was paid a yearly grant of $161,000. All of the grant and more was chewed up by insurance, repair costs, council rates, and administrative expenses.” They also note that “the amount of rent outstanding was $580,000.” So basically, the Local Land Council is in a financial mess, and residents are growing tired of it.

The article also mentions that the Local Land Council has “one full-time paid chief executive.” Given the Council’s financial mess, that’s certainly an interesting detail, especially since the rest of the board is entirely volunteer. The article doesn’t state who the CEO is, which, on its own, seems a little odd. But as we’ve already discovered, things are rarely what they seem.

Anyway, you get the idea. Despite all the promises of improving Aboriginal people’s lives, we still have towns in Australia which are essentially falling apart despite the best efforts of the “Local” Aboriginal Land Council whose members don’t even live there.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn