Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people secure appropriate, affordable housing that is aligned with their priorities and need

Target 9A

By 2031, increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in appropriately sized (not overcrowded) housing to 88%.

Target 9B

By 2031, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households:

• within discrete Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities receive essential services that meet or exceed the relevant jurisdictional standard
• in or near to a town receive essential services that meet or exceed the same standard as applies generally within the town (including if the household might be classified for other purposes as a part of a discrete settlement such as a “town camp” or “town based reserve”)

Social housing dwellings per 100 households by location.

This indicator consists of two measures:

Measure 1 is the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households residing in social housing

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households that are residing in a social housing dwelling, by remoteness area

Denominator – total number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households, by remoteness area

and is presented as a percentage.

Measure 2

Numerator – number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households that are renting through a social housing provider, by social housing program, by remoteness area

and is presented as a number.

National Agreement on Closing the Gap July 2020

31 July 2024

Contextual information

Both measures

A high or increasing proportion or number is desirable as it may indicate a higher availability of social housing, but access to social housing should be considered in the context of population need.

Measure 1

Name: ABS Census of Population and Housing, Census Table Builder (Basic)

Frequency: Five-yearly

Documentation (links): www.abs.gov.au/census

Measure 2

Name: National Housing Assistance Data Repository

Frequency: Annual

Documentation (links): https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics/health-welfare-services/housing-assistance/data-sources

Measure 1

Provider name: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Provider area: Census

Measure 2

Provider name: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Provider area: Housing

All measures 2016

Measure 1: 2021

Measure 2: 2023

Measure 1

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status (household), by tenure and landlord type (‘Rented: State or territory housing authority’ or ‘Rented: Community housing provider’.

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status (household), by tenure and landlord type (‘Rented: State or territory housing authority’ or ‘Rented: Community housing provider’), by remoteness area.

Measure 2

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status (household), by social housing program.

State and territory and Australia, by Indigenous status (household), by social housing program, by remoteness area.

Numerator divided by Denominator multiplied by 100

Counting rules

All measures

An Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander household is a household that has at least one Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person who is a usual resident.

Measure 1

Includes (both numerator and denominator):

• Persons in occupied private dwellings who were at home on Census night.

Excludes (both numerator and denominator):

• Households in the ‘Not applicable’ category of the Indigenous household indicator variable.

Includes (numerator):

• Households with tenure and landlord types of ‘Rented: State or territory housing authority’ or ‘Rented: Community housing provider’.

Excludes (denominator):

• Households with tenure and landlord type of ‘Not stated’ (8,652 in 2021) and ‘Rented: Landlord type not stated’ (1,379 in 2021).

Extraction

Census Table Builder (Basic) – selected dwelling characteristics: INGDWTD X Remoteness Areas (EN) X TENLLD

Measure 2

Includes households that are renting through the following social housing providers:

• Public housing (PH) – dwellings owned (or leased) and managed by state and territory housing authorities. Public housing is generally accessed by people on low incomes and/or those in selected equity groups, and aims to provide a choice of housing location, physical type and management arrangements.
• State owned and managed Indigenous housing (SOMIH) – dwellings owned and managed by state and territory housing authorities that are allocated only to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tenants, including dwellings managed by government Indigenous housing agencies. There may be some non‑Indigenous households within the SOMIH program.
• Community housing (CH) – rental housing provided to low-to-moderate income households and/or those in selected equity groups, managed by community-based organisations that lease properties from government or have received a capital or recurrent subsidy from government.
• Indigenous community housing (ICH) – dwellings owned or leased and managed by ICH organisations and community councils.

Counts for ‘all areas’ includes households with a 'not stated/unknown' remoteness classification.

Measure 1

Data values have been randomly adjusted by the ABS using perturbation to avoid the release of confidential data.

The 2016 tenure and landlord type category ‘Rented: Housing co-operative, community or church group’ has been reworded to ‘Rented: Community housing provider’. This change was implemented by the ABS from the 2021 Census.

Measure 2

To protect individuals’ privacy, all cells including any totals and subtotals have been rounded to the nearest 5, values from 1 to 7 are rounded to 5. Zero cells are actual zeros. This may result in the sum of individual cells not equalling the total values. Caution should be taken in re-calculating totals from rounded data values, as this may compound the effects of rounding. The rounded data presented may differ slightly compared with previously published data values.

A household is classified as 'Indigenous' if any member of the household identifies as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin. There may be some non-Indigenous households within the SOMIH program. Indigenous status is not collected for the ICH program and all households are assumed to be Indigenous. For PH and CH programs, Indigenous status is self-identified.

Counts of Indigenous households in this data is an undercount and is not consistent with the data from the Census. Social housing type is not consistent with the data from the Census. The Census count of social housing type is lower than the actual number of social housing households due to self-reporting errors.

The data is not comparable in some instances over time and comparisons could be misleading. For example, in 2017‑18 in South Australia and 2018‑19 in New South Wales, a large number of dwellings were transferred from PH and/or SOMIH to CH. Victoria, Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory do not have a SOMIH program. Northern Territory data were reported from 2018 as only limited aggregate information was provided in 2017. The Australian Capital Territory does not have an ICH program.

The data corresponds to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) edition of the Remoteness Area (RA) structure. From 2023, the 2021 ASGS was used. From 2018 to 2022, the 2016 ASGS was used. Prior to 2018, the 2011 ASGS was used. For PH, CH and SOMIH, dwellings were assigned to RAs using a postcode to RA correspondence file. The Northern Territory does not provide postcodes for the ICH program. Due to data quality issues, some CH data are not published for Victoria (2017) and Queensland (2018, 2019, 2023). Care is required when comparing the data by remoteness areas across time.

Further information on data quality for social housing data collections in the National Housing Assistance Data Repository is available on the AIHW website https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics/health-welfare-services/housing-assistance/data-sources.

Future reporting will seek to include the following additional disaggregations:

• other small geographic areas (where possible)
• socioeconomic status of the locality
• overcrowding status
• disability status.