Housing in Darwin: Policies and Their Results

Abstract

The study is written with those involved in making housing policy in Darwin in mind. It focuses mainly on when, how and why policy decisions were made pertaining to eligibility rules and mortgage finance terms and conditions for housing in Darwin. It is also concerned with the physical and social effects, and the consequences, both visible invisible, of the main policies and the decisions made during their administration over a decade following Cyclone Tracy. It is proposed that the most important policy decisions affecting housing in Darwin include The Northern Territory Home Purchase Assistance Scheme, the decision to build the suburb of Palmerston, the purchase of Commonwealth Hostels in Darwin in 1980, The Transfer to Purchase Scheme, abolition of separate waiting lists for government employees and the general public, the proposed needs-based allocation formula for Commonwealth housing funds, Mortgage portability, increase in government employees’ mortgage interest rates, restriction of single government employees’ access to public rental housing and the tenancy transfer policy announcement. The Study is limited to the Northern Territory Government’s principal schemes, and especially those administered by the Northern Territory Housing Commission. Police Housing has been omitted from this account, as have schemes for Australia Post and Telecom personnel. A former scheme for railway employees is also omitted. A further study to explore differences among the various schemes, and apparent anomalies these differences produce, is said to worthwhile, but beyond the scope of this study.