BROWN, Mrs Christine, Chief Executive Officer, South Australian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation Network CLINCH, Mr Doug, Executive Director, Office of the Chief Executive, South Australian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation Network WILSON, Professor Scott, Lead Convenor, South Australian Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation Network [14:46] CHAIR: Welcome. We really appreciate you coming in person and bringing us your evidence. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to committees has been provided to you. Would you like to give us an opening statement? Prof. Wilson : Thanks for inviting us along today. We're here to discuss intergenerational housing inequity and the impact on Aboriginal people in South Australia. SAACCON is a state based representative body made up of over 30 South Australian community controlled organisations across the state. We're also basically the voice for Close the Gap in South Australia. We exist to strengthen, support and advocate for culturally responsive services and systems that meet the needs of our people. We work to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are central to decision-making processes that affect our communities and ensure that our knowledge, leadership and experience shape the policies, programs and services designed to close the gap. Our core points are that SAACCON supports the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia's and NACCHO's, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations, submissions to this inquiry setting out historical failures of government policies and their lasting impact on Aboriginal people and that we support their proposed recommendations. We know that housing is a primary driver of health and wellbeing. Evidence from South Australia's Health in All Policies work shows that factors like housing quality, energy access, education and employment all sit outside the health system yet determine health outcomes. If we fail to address housing inequity in an integrated way, we embed poor health and poor wellbeing across generations. This demonstrates that housing reform is not just a housing policy; it is a health, education, justice and economic policy as well. It is important to view the housing crisis for Aboriginal people in its historical context. It is because of the historical and colonial contexts outlined in NACCHO's submission that many Aboriginal people were thrust into the housing crisis and prevented from transferring generational wealth to their children. Instead, it was replaced with the transfer of disadvantage from one generation to the next. This disadvantage has not remained historic; it continues today. The report titled The right to power, produced by the First Nations Clean Energy Network in November 2025, shows that First Nations communities on prepaid meters across Australia experience frequent disconnections from essential utilities. These disruptions impact food security, health and opportunities for economic development. This is a prime example of what intergenerational inequity looks like in our modern world. Until real structural reforms replace generational and structural racism across all sectors, especially housing, changes will be piecemeal, and the Australian dream remains out of reach for many Aboriginal people. Right now, support systems are fragmented. Housing, health and energy operate separately, yet the disadvantages are experienced as one. This fragmentation is in itself a driver of intergenerational inequity. NACCHO's submission demonstrates effectively the interconnectedness of socioeconomic disparities, creating a cycle of disadvantage which must be addressed through coordinated, Australian led structural reform. Since the abolition of the South Australian Aboriginal Housing Authority in 2007 by the then Labor government, housing stock integrated into mainstream, mostly charitable organisations. Aboriginal voices since this time must compete with broader public housing priorities. Mainstream services are not designed for Aboriginal needs. Racism and discrimination are prevalent. Aboriginal people must now compete for housing in a mainstream space. SAACCON was successful in advocating with the South Australian government, and basically we were able to secure a commitment for $2½ million over five years because South Australia is one of the only jurisdictions that didn't have an Aboriginal community controlled housing association. That funding that we've received for the five years is to develop and stand up an independent Aboriginal community controlled housing association, but, as you can imagine, it's not sufficient for a peak body to achieve its objectives. Adequate funding must follow, because renting and maintenance of homes is not a profit-making business, particularly when many Aboriginal renters are on low incomes. Strong partnerships will be key to its success. As I said, that funding only just started this calendar year. We do have a whole range of proposed recommendations, but we can table them rather than go through them if you want to, which gives you opportunity to ask us questions. CHAIR: Could you table them; that would be very useful. Prof. Wilson: Yes, we will. CHAIR: That's excellent. Does anyone else want to add comments—Mrs Brown or Mr Clinch? Mr Clinch : Not at this stage. CHAIR: Thanks for bringing a historical perspective and deep experience in housing to this inquiry. Many witnesses have pointed to the very significant and unique challenges that have not been addressed historically for Indigenous people in terms of housing, and we've already heard evidence in this room today about how the intergenerational history of failing to pay wages and allow the accumulation of assets, as well as dispossession and removal from family, has resulted in an intergenerational housing legacy which has been extremely deleterious. It's affected the lives of probably every First Nations person. Thanks for reinforcing that point and bringing your evidence forward. I just want to go to that grant that you've received, as you said, in recent days, in this calendar year, to establish an independent community housing body. Can you just fill us in a little further on how it's progressing and what you are planning to deliver? Prof. Wilson: Yes. It's progressing at the moment. We've employed an interim CEO, and they are basically, as we're speaking, doing community consultations around the state to try and find out from community what sort of model this new peak housing body should be. Should it just be a peak housing body that's about policies and procedures or could it be a replica of the old Aboriginal housing unit that actually had houses that you could— CHAIR: That's a supply organisation. Prof. Wilson : Yes. You could then allocate housing stock to Indigenous folk across the state. It's only early days at this stage because, like I said, they've only just started that community consultation. From a SAACCON point of view, we're hoping that, eventually, they will become an incorporated association, then go off and set themselves up as a fully legal entity and, at the end of the day, be members of SAACCON. At the moment, a lot of our community members are either health providers or aged-care providers et cetera. That has been really good in terms of having community organisations that have the expertise to look at how we can reduce the gap in the 18 socioeconomic targets. One of those gaps, clearly, was housing. We're hoping that they have every success moving forward. CHAIR: We've heard a lot of evidence today about the crisis in South Australia, with the rising rates of homelessness and the incredible difficulty in finding your way into affordable housing, whether as a renter or as an occupier of social housing. There's the long wait list, for example, for public housing. What reflections do you have for us as a committee about what's changing for younger Indigenous Australians in South Australia? Do you notice a deterioration for younger people? What is your perspective about that issue? We're really looking at intergenerational shifts between what's gone before—which hasn't been great and there are plenty of older people out there with many challenges. But what's happening for our young Indigenous population? Prof. Wilson : Well, when I grew up, once I left school, I went off and I was able to get rental accommodation somewhere, whereas what's happening now—and I don't think it's just with Aboriginal folk—is that, more and more, you've got young people who just don't move out. They've got nowhere to go. There's no pathway for them. As you said, the public housing list is so long. Even trying to get into the private rental market, there's no way in the world that, in this day and age, that a young person could. I could afford to rent a flat back in my day or share with somebody, whereas these days you could be sharing with multitudes of people. For a lot of Aboriginal kids, it's least likely that they're going to be doing that. I know that Doug and that live down at the southern end of Adelaide. Housing stock down there would be very difficult to find. I've had people—my own family, for example—come down from Darwin asking me whether I could ring up a real estate agent, because they're a bit darker. When they've said, 'Yes, come around and have a look at the property,' as soon as they rock up—and they're a little bit darker than most people—they just get told, 'Oh, sorry. The place has been let.' CHAIR: That's straightforward racism. Prof. Wilson : You can ring that real estate agent back after that and find out that it's still on the market. They face that sort of racism and are therefore less likely to put themselves back out there. So they tend to—what's the word?—couch surf. In my other role, as CEO of the Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council, we operate day centres in rural and remote communities. It's interesting that, up until recently, for years people used to just say, 'If all of those Aboriginal folk went back to the APY Lands,' for example, 'we wouldn't have a problem'. Well, COVID showed that those towns have got their own massive housing problem, because those people had to go back—otherwise they had what they called 'biosecurity lockdown' and they couldn't come back—and we were still feeding 50 to 60 people a day, because people could come to us for food. We said all along that Port Augusta, Ceduna and all those sorts of towns have got a major housing crisis, but people didn't really take that much notice of us, whereas, in actual fact, if you have a look at those places today, that has become a reality. They're just out of sight, out of mind. It's interconnected. You've got nowhere to live. Unfortunately, some people might get into petty crime and things like that just to survive. You just have to walk around the streets at night-time here in Adelaide. The amount of people that you see sleeping rough has actually increased quite dramatically—from pre-COVID, for example. CHAIR: Absolutely. Mr Clinch, do you want to add anything further to that about young people and how experiences have changed? Mr Clinch : Yes. Echoing what Scott has said, in our community we often have intergenerational living. That's obviously a part of our culture—that we do look after our own. We do see situations where kids might go into care and, rather than lose them within the system, we feel obligated to take on those children—and that's older children as well. And often they will then have to stay in that house because there aren't any options for them to move out. My mum's a carer. She's got a couple of girls that are now moving into their late teens. There's just no realistic option for them to find alternative places. And a lot of this social housing is quite small, like a lot of the houses that I know my family live in. So the overcrowding is quite extreme. And, I guess, when you have things like mental health and other issues that may come up, it just really intensifies the issues that might come up in that space. Housing is obviously a huge component of that. But all of the implications of the lack of suitable, appropriate housing for Aboriginal families that can be quite large, with larger kinship systems—these factors, I think, have never really been a part of the thinking when we've been developing new housing with Aboriginal people in mind. We've kind of had this nuclear family as the norm, and anything outside of that is a little bit strange. So Aboriginal communities often feel the repercussions of that. Obviously, as a younger person, I've got lots of cousins and lots of family that are still at home and probably will be for a long time, unless something dramatic changes in their world. CHAIR: We've had evidence today—from Hutt St, for example—about the pathways forward needing to have different models of housing available to Indigenous community members. So there's very clear evidence on that. Mrs Brown, do you want to add anything more from your experience? Mrs Brown : No, I feel that it's pretty much been echoed through, as we were saying, AHCSA and NACCHO's ones and what these two have said. But it is very much with Aboriginal people, because—whether you're looking at the Public Service—Aboriginal people don't sit on high incomes. There is a glass ceiling kind of thing that stops there, and you've got a handful after that. And, when you've got $800,000 homes, how are they ever going to be able to go into that space? I know that, for my son, for example, where he's staying now, his is about $500 a week. That's down south, and he struggles as a single dad to save up to try and move into a place, and that's where we're having to look at how we can help him as well. And I think that you'd get that with a lot of families. Now it's on the parents, probably using our super and stuff, to try and help our younger kids. Prof. Wilson : I think, also, that one of the crises that are going to occur is for older folk. We've got quite a few staff at the moment that have worked for us for a long time, and they actually turned 70 this year, and I've said to them a few times, 'What are you going to do when you retire?' They're paying, like you said, $500 a week for a rental. And, once they finish work, there's no way in the world that, on the age pension, they're going to be able to afford $500 or $600 a week—even with rent relief. I really think what will happen is they'll work until they pass away, because they won't be able to afford not to work. And the saddest thing, or one of the interesting things, is—I'm a bit like the rest. I've got family and grandkids and all of that who still live with me. My 14-year-old granddaughter said to me: 'Grandpa, when you die, what's going to happen to your house? Because if we're not living here, we'll be homeless.' I was sitting there thinking that, as a kid growing up, I never even would have thought of where I was going. You just knew you always had a house. I wouldn't have thought about it. A 14-year-old kid shouldn't have to be thinking about whether they are going to be homeless because one of their adult family members dies and doesn't leave them the house, for example. Anyway, I told her I would. CHAIR: We had evidence this morning from a 13-year-old who had a petition signed by 22,000 people about their hopelessness and despair about their housing futures, and they're in the education system. I'm not saying it's easy for them; it's very real. But they aren't dealing with racism. They aren't dealing with multigenerational—I'm not describing this young person's circumstance; I don't know enough about that. But the crisis out there of despair is very real amongst relatively advantaged parts of our population. Clearly, for many Indigenous people, it's a much more complex, more challenging and more vulnerable moment. Prof. Wilson : Yes. My wife, when she was alive—one of her carers, a lady who's got a full-time job as a carer, was living in a car because she had accommodation that the landlord decided to sell. Well, that was it; she couldn't find rental, so she was working and then sleeping in the car. CHAIR: Senator Mulholland. Senator MULHOLLAND: Thank you very much to our witnesses for joining us this afternoon. Your network represents a number of Aboriginal community controlled organisations across South Australia. One of the things we hear a lot about is the need to close the gap and try and move the dial, and we know that, as has already been articulated, housing outcomes for First Nations people are a real challenge. Tell us about how meaningful it is and why it's necessary that we have partnership and shared decision-making between government and First Nations led organisations. Why is that so important to get the right outcomes? Mrs Brown : The shared decision-making actually goes to self-determination. All levels of government have signed up to the national agreement and made that commitment. We are in a place, at the moment, where it's having both parties understand exactly what each other is expecting from shared decision-making and what self-determination is, because Aboriginal people see shared decision-making very differently to governments. There is that experience, through Aboriginal led reviews and through productivity commissions and stuff, that government is just not willing to let that control go. If you have that shared decision-making, you're actually having Aboriginal people design it. It goes back to the old adage of 'nothing about us without us'. Now, that would go to anyone. If you're talking about health and women or whatever and you have somebody that's totally opposite making that decision, you're going to end up with—well, we've ended up with decades of failed policies. This national agreement has really put us at the table to now do it. We are getting that commitment with the South Australian government here, but we're also in the very early stages, so we haven't really gone through exactly what all our reforms are. How that goes—I don't know. But here we are. As SAACCON, we're working in partnership. And we see our role as not only one of accountability; we want us to support, work together and collaborate about how we can get better outcomes. I think, probably, the test will come over the next four or five months as to how far we go. It is frustrating, when we're looking at self-determination and we're looking at what it means to Aboriginal people, if you don't move that dial and if government is not willing to make that shift. We hope that we can try and change some of that and change some of those attitudes, because for years it's always been this way. Now they're trying to change how they're doing it and letting us share in those decisions and stuff like that. That's a big shift for government to make, but we're here and willing to work with them to do it. Prof. Wilson : It's also about making sure that we're abreast of all of the things that are interconnected—for example, with the big intergovernmental housing agreements that are usually done between the Commonwealth and the states, making sure that, as part of the Closing the Gap agenda, there is a commitment in there and that a percentage, or whatever, of that housing agreement actually is for Aboriginal people to access. Or it's sitting back with the Housing Australia Future Fund, for example, and saying, 'When you're actually looking at the future housing fund, are you also looking at climate change? Are you looking at people who might be living in really remote communities, making sure that the houses that you're upgrading there have access to not just heating but also solar energy and cooling?' In extreme weather, if you can't switch on the lights or put on an air conditioner and you're an old person, you're actually putting that person's health at risk. The tricky part of the whole agenda around Closing the Gap is not only making sure that we're across all of that but also making sure that we can actually comment and try and get those major players to take what we're saying seriously. But you've also got to recall that we do all of that as part of our second or third job, so to speak. I'm the lead convenor at SAACCON, but that's not my paid job. So it's interesting. Mr Clinch : Can I add to that as well? When you talk about shared decision-making, I think it's really important given that the lived experience and cultural values of Aboriginal people are often vastly different from the people that are making decisions about our lives. So there needs to be a dialogue. There needs to be a true understanding of the implications of the decisions that people far removed from those decisions are actually making. So that's one of the reasons why we're so keen to see shared decision-making embodied throughout the structures of government, particularly as it relates to Aboriginal people and communities, because we know that, without that lived experience and without the context that Aboriginal people can bring about their lives, these decisions often miss the mark by a long way. We've seen that throughout the history of Australia. That's my perspective on shared decision-making and why Closing the Gap and this partnership are really important. Senator MULHOLLAND: Thank you very much for that. One of the other things we've been considering as a committee is the role that the Commonwealth has in funding and supporting the delivery of housing across Australia. There is an acknowledgement from a lot of witnesses that, for a long time, back in the 1950s and 1960s, the Commonwealth had a very strong role but then wasn't really involved for the last 40 years and really left it to the states and territories and has now come back to the table with significant programs like the Housing Australia Future Fund. We've also heard a bit of a difference of opinion from witnesses about whether the government should wholly and solely be the one that delivers public or social housing. The government have taken a different view. We believe that we should be partnering with community housing providers, who often know their communities better and can get the best outcomes. I was at a housing project yesterday on the Sunshine Coast that a community housing provider has delivered. It's just about to open. It's a five-storey building. It's 100 per cent social housing. They've actually delivered a number of units with everything in the kitchen specifically designed for people in wheelchairs. They say, 'We know our clientele. We know who they are. We know their age. We know they're going to need this mobility, so we're going to design it that way,' which may not always be the way if only government was running it. I'm interested to get your feedback and thoughts. We also have a stream for the Housing Australia Future Fund dedicated to funding direct First Nations-led housing organisations to deliver housing for First Nations people, with some very specific criteria. I welcome your thoughts on how you think that might operate, whether it's a good or bad thing, rather than government coming in and saying, 'We're going to deliver it because we're the government and we know what to do.' Is it better to be partnering with First Nations-led housing organisations and providers to provide the best solutions for the local communities, acknowledging that housing might look different in different communities? Prof. Wilson : Look, you're right. From our point of view, obviously, yes, we would appreciate that housing availability, if you're lucky to have a housing provider, right? Part of South Australia's dilemma up until now has been, I suppose, that there wasn't an Aboriginal community housing provider. We've recognised that. We've recognised that if there is a housing provider, for example, then we have an opportunity to either go to state government and say, 'Well, we're going to now tender for when you've got your big tenders coming up, not just for availability of housing but also for homelessness as well.' Because up until now we've been forced into what they call alliances with mainstream services. Look, I'll be frank and honest. Those alliances were really alliances in name only because they had to have an Aboriginal group as part of that alliance, but the Aboriginal group really didn't benefit as part of that. So we look forward to when they retender that out and we've got a community housing association up and running. I still think, though, that the Commonwealth obviously does have a major role because when you were providing the South Australian Housing Trust with funding for public housing and then the state government for whatever reason decided to abolish the Aboriginal housing unit within that, a thousand houses then didn't go to Aboriginal folk. They were divided up amongst the care bear groups—Anglicare CatholicCare, all of those sorts of providers. So those houses to a certain extent become are lost to our community because they just become part and parcel of that bigger provider. We're starting from zero really in that whole space, and that goes back to, as we've said before, historical intergenerational inequality. We don't even have a capital base to start from. If you walk around any town in Adelaide, South Australia or Australia, most of the prime real estate is actually owned by some church group, so they already have a capital base. We're starting from zero and that's why I'm saying the Commonwealth can play a really great role because we're not on a level playing field to start off with, so for us to even get somewhere we need that support clearly from the federal government because we've not been getting it from the state. Senator MULHOLLAND: Thank you for that. That's a really fair call out, and I appreciate your feedback. Senator CAROL BROWN: Thank you for your evidence, Mr Wilson. We talked a little bit about the peak body that has been established. My understanding from what's been said is that one of the key focuses will be on supporting the development of community controlled housing and also other support services. But I wondered whether within part of the peak body's remit is around driving Aboriginal-led decision-making. Is that part of the remit of the peak body? Prof. Wilson : Yes. Obviously, it 100 per cent would be Aboriginal controlled and owned entity. All of the members of SAACCON are Aboriginal community controlled organisations. We're the largest Aboriginal community controlled group in South Australia and one of the major contributors to coalition of the peaks nationally as well. Senator CAROL BROWN: Will the peak body have any role in talking to the South Australian government around targets for appropriate housing or affordable housing for Aboriginal communities under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap? Mrs Brown : Yes, that certainly would be the role. Look, through our earlier partnership collaborations with the Commonwealth government over the past couple of years when we're developing implementation plans and stuff like that and just general conversations, we've always said it would be good if that funding could go straight to that ACCO and let that ACCO decide who it is that they want to partner with, rather than open it up to a tender process. I'm just looking here at Toward Home Alliance. Let's just say that they were one of them, would they partner with the peak body or not? We would really advocate that that money goes straight to the ACCO and let the ACCO decide who it is that they want to partner with. Let them have some kind of control over who it is that they wish to partner with. Senator CAROL BROWN: We've had a bit of a conversation around housing stock, and you've probably partly already answered this question, but I really want to go to some more detail, I suppose, about what barriers currently prevent Aboriginal community controlled housing organisations from expanding housing stock and services. Is that one of the reasons why the peak body was set up? Prof. Wilson : Yes, because at the moment there is no Aboriginal housing stock as such in South Australia that's available. There is no community controlled housing association—full stop. Whereas if you go to some other jurisdictions like New South Wales, for example, they do have upwards of about 30 Aboriginal community housing providers. South Australia, like I said, had zero. So that's the goal with the peak body—to get them up and running and then obviously to try and encourage other community-controlled organisations to maybe go down that track of becoming a community housing provider. As you may or may not be aware, obviously the process to do that is not an easy process in itself. The organisation I work for spoke to the head of NATSIHA, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Association, about how we could become a community housing provider, because one of the things we do besides feeding people is run residential rehabilitation services. How can we maybe extend that? If a client comes through our resi programs, the next step could be that we then provide them with some form of accommodation when they leave, rather than have them going back to homelessness. But they've said they could help us do that but it could take quite some time by the time you go through filling out all the different documents et cetera et cetera. So I suppose it's trying to change the way Aboriginal community organisations look at what they do—their core business—but also look at how we can provide add-on-type services that make us more able to provide community members with a range of options—not just all going off to, let's say, the Housing Trust office and putting your name down and waiting 20 years for a house to pop up. Maybe, if there were more community housing providers in South Australia, you'd at least have that option. If you live outside of Adelaide, I don't know where you would even go to get a house except from the private rental market. I was shocked—because we operate services across the state—that some of our staff are paying more for rental in places like Port Augusta, for example, than here in Adelaide in Outer Harbor. So that's also a barrier to getting staff to move into those rural and regional towns and, in particular, getting people who've got qualifications and skills that aren't available currently in those towns to move there as well. They're less likely to do that because the cost of housing is so high. Mrs Brown : If you also look, as we said, at the $2.5 million over five years—we've just started this one with no housing stock. There's your first barrier—and how or where that can kind of get addressed. The interim CEO is certainly going to have a lot of work ahead of her in trying to address that, because we know, just for the budget for this year, that that was kind of more truth and treaty—that type of work. I don't think anything—that money aside—really came out of this SA budget with regard to housing. Senator CAROL BROWN: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the evidence you've given here today. CHAIR: I add my voice to thank you so much for coming forward with this. I want to make sure I've got more of a picture and to just check my understanding. In this state we are missing the kind of infrastructure for Aboriginal controlled housing that exists in a big state like New South Wales, where there is that depth of institutional capability. As long as we fund housing through those structures, it's a long pipeline in South Australia before we get houses on the ground that are Aboriginal controlled through Aboriginal organisations. Is that what we're looking at? Prof. Wilson : Yes. CHAIR: You've got the beginnings of an organisation to create that infrastructure. But we know it's a very long pipeline between the decision or the granting of the funding and the construction of the housing. Does that mean you would prefer to go back to a corralled set of houses within the public housing system? I just wonder where that lands you. Prof. Wilson : It is one of the options. Let's say SA housing had, for example, the old Aboriginal housing unit; that would give people immediate access to housing, because you'd be on a list. At the same time that you have that, it gives the community the opportunity to develop the community housing option, or association, which is how the big housing providers, UnitingCare and all of those, are basically able to operate, because, as you probably know, once you've got housing stock, you can then— CHAIR: Leverage. Prof. Wilson : leverage off that. You can say, 'Okay, we've got 100 houses. Let's go to the bank. Let's borrow enough money to build another 20 or 30 houses and continue.' As you're doing that, before you know it, you've got a lot more options for people—not just the public housing stock; you've also got community housing stock. Then, you get to a situation where you could have, as I said, drug and alcohol. It could be that carrot and stick approach for people who want to change their life. But, at the moment, there are really not a lot of options. Once they finish with you at 12 weeks, bang, they're back out that front door. If they've got nowhere to go, then their only choice really is—and you could expand that to a whole range of different sectors. There's domestic violence and prison reform, for example. We run prison programs. I was talking to one of the guys the other day who has been in and out of jail for 34 years. He's decided he's changed now; he's doing a cert III and all of that. I asked, 'What's the difference? What's made you change after 34 years?' He said, 'Well, before, there was no support.' He'd come out, he couldn't get a job, he couldn't get accommodation et cetera, so he'd back in jail, whereas this time, he's come out and he's got support on the outside. He's channelled in the right directions. Just recently, for example, we did take him back into Yatala to talk to some of the fellas about how he, a 34-year-old career criminal, is now basically changing his life. Even if he only makes one of those fellas spark up and think, 'Well, if you can, I can,' then that's been successful, as far as we look at it. CHAIR: We've heard a lot of evidence about the need for wraparound services— Prof. Wilson : That's it. CHAIR: and key individuals who support individuals one-to-one—we've heard them named—and also secure housing. I've heard Uncle Moogy, for example, over the years talk about how jail is a lot more comfortable; you have a meal and a roof over your head. We need to do better than that—in our housing provisions at least. Prof. Wilson : Yes. Mrs Brown : I think the other lever we could have is under priority reform 2. Priority reform 2 is looking at where services are currently provided by mainstream services. It's looking at getting the ACCOs set up to the extent that, once those contracts are finished—as their terms come up—that funding comes to the ACCO, the Aboriginal community-controlled organisation. That will also depend on capacity and capability. So there might be potential to partner as they take on a particular role. But whether there's that potential when you look at all these housing organisations—your first thought is to wonder: 'Under priority reform 2, how much of that could, under a partnership, come back?' CHAIR: Thank you so much for your evidence today. We have many, many challenges ahead, and I know that you're dealing with them every day. We, as senators, really appreciate you bringing your long experience to this and we wish you the very best. We will certainly be making recommendations out of your evidence today. If you have taken any questions on notice—to give us anything further—we'd love to get answers within two weeks of you getting the Hansard transcript. That concludes our hearing today. Thank you to all the witnesses who have appeared. Thank you to the senators who have sat out there on Zoom all day; we really appreciate that. Thanks to Hansard and Broadcasting for their assistance and their travel of equipment all over the country, and, in particular, thanks to our secretariat for all that they do. Committee adjourned at 15:3 5