UN Expert Says Aborigines Living In Some Of The Worst Housing In The World
Yvonne Lee - All Headline News Staff Reporter (AHN) - A United Nations housing expert says Australia is in the midst of a "serious hidden national housing crisis," because its Aborigines are living in some of the worst conditions in the world. UN special reporter Miloon Kothari expressed his criticisms after a two-week tour of the country. He says, "I think that some of the conditions that I've seen are amongst the worst in the world both in terms of overcrowding, severe overcrowding, and in terms of lack of access to civic services." Some 470,000 Aborigines live in Australia, which has a population of 20 million. Kothari says he witnessed up to 30 people living in a two-bedroom house. He says, "We visited one community in the Alice Springs camps where people were living in tin shacks for the last 30 years and with no rights to their land and, of course, no services." He says Australia needs to appoint a federal housing minister to fix the nation's "housing crisis." Rod Kemp, a government minister, responds to Kothari's criticisms by saying, "The mere fact you have the UN [make] some comment doesn't make it right." Kothari also spoke critically about plans to change land laws, which would get rid of communal land ownership. Kemp says the UN is not the "font of all wisdom... Sometimes the UN gets it right and sometimes it gets it wrong." He adds, "We just don't dip our lid to any |
