Wilya Janta | Aboriginal Housing Northern Territory
Image credit: Andrew Quilty
For generations, Indigenous people in Australia have been living in government housing that fails to acknowledge their historic and ongoing colonial displacement.
Despite years of policy reform framed around integration and reconciliation, remote housing in the Northern Territory is still largely delivered through a centralised, top-down approach lacking meaningful community engagement. The result is in housing designed through a Eurocentric lens that often fails to reflect cultural values or respond to local climate and environmental realities.
The Right Way Housing Guidelines were developed by Wilya Janta in response to this challenge. Wilya Janta is an innovative, not-for-profit cultural consultancy that promotes community agency in the design and construction of housing.
The Guidelines have been applied in Jurnkkurakurr (Tennant Creek) through a series of ‘Explain Homes’, practical examples that demonstrate how housing design can respond to cultural priorities, local context and infrastructure realities in remote housing.
SGS was engaged by Wilya Janta and Aboriginal Housing Northern Territory to develop a business case exploring the rationale, and the costs and benefits of implementing the Right Way Housing Guidelines.
As part of the business case, a Cost Benefit Analysis compared a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario, reflecting the Northern Territory Government’s current approach to remote housing delivery, with the outcomes anticipated under the Right Way Housing Guidelines, using the Wilya Janta Explain Home as a case study.
The analysis found that for every $1 invested in the Right Way approach, up to $2 in measurable economic and social benefits could be returned.
The work shows that real and lasting change in remote Aboriginal housing in the Northern Territory depends on sustained investment in a genuinely self-determined approach. It means properly resourcing engagement, co-design and partnership at the outset of housing delivery, and working in authentic collaboration with the community to deliver homes that are culturally grounded, climate responsive and built to last.
The evidence is clear. The policy settings are aligned. The economic analysis points to a positive return.
The knowledge needed to improve outcomes already exists within Community, within Country, within Culture.
The work is a call to move from acknowledgement to implementation: to invest in partnership-based housing delivery with the respect, consistency and long-term commitment required to achieve lasting structural change
Source: Wilya Janta (2025)
