Approximately 91,600 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (or 13.7 per cent of the Indigenous population) live in areas classified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as 'very remote'. A further 51,300 Indigenous people (6.7 per cent of the Indigenous population) live in areas classified as 'remote'.123
Most of these people live in the NT (40,100 people in very remote areas and 14,800 people in remote areas), Queensland (22,700 and 13,200 people respectively) and WA (20,500 and 15,000 people respectively). NSW (3,400 and 6,100 people respectively) and SA (4,800 and 1,600 respectively) also have a sizeable number of Indigenous people living in very remote and remote areas.
There are around 1,200 remote communities in Australia.124 Many lack even basic infrastructure such as reasonable road access, clean water supplies and wastewater services. In November 2014, the WA Government announced its intention to close between 100 and 150 of the 274 remote communities in WA, largely due to the high costs of service provision to people in these areas.
Providing remote Indigenous communities with infrastructure services at a level consistent with other communities of a similar size and location is essential to the broader aims of the Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) 2008 Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage initiative. Progress in improving social outcomes such as health, education and employment relies on the ability of Indigenous communities to access services and economic opportunities and to build stronger links with the rest of Australia.
Infrastructure Australia has previously argued that Indigenous communities should have similar access to infrastructure as non-Indigenous communities of comparable size and location.125
The Australian Government's Closing the Gap: Prime Minister's Report 2015 revealed that many of the key health, education and employment indicators of Indigenous disadvantage have failed to meet the benchmarks set by COAG.126 Providing essential infrastructure services to remote Indigenous communities will be fundamental to moving closer to achieving these Closing the Gap aspirations.
Disparity between cities and remote Indigenous communities in the provision of services is driven by several geographic, economic and social factors, including:
■ low population densities in remote communities, resulting in high per capita construction and maintenance costs for infrastructure relative to urban and regional markets;
■ isolated locations and poor road conditions, which cause difficulties in accessing infrastructure for maintenance and upgrades;
■ high demand for contractors and tradespeople over highly dispersed areas, which leads to shortages in available construction and maintenance services; and
■ the need for highly resilient infrastructure components to withstand often extreme temperatures and weather events in remote locations increases costs.
A large number of Indigenous-specific and mainstream funding and support programs serve the Indigenous community.127 Poor governance structures in the delivery of essential infrastructure services often result in a duplication of services and a lack of coordination across agencies. Funding processes for services must be streamlined and targeted to deliver the greatest benefits to communities.
Where feasible, individual communities should play a central role in determining their infrastructure priorities. Local Indigenous people should be engaged to deliver those services, in order to bring about sustainable developments in infrastructure provision for Indigenous people in remote areas.
Improving infrastructure services in remote Indigenous communities requires clarity of leadership by governments, with recognition of not only the importance of addressing the issue, but also the scale of resources required to achieve meaningful and sustainable changes.
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123. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013a)
124. Australian National University Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (2007)
125. Infrastructure Australia (2012c), p. 70
126. Australian Government (2015b)
127. Department of Finance and Deregulation (2010) found there were 235 programs at the time.