NT Court of Appeal upholds tenants' right to clean drinking water in remote communities
The NT Court of Appeal ruled clean drinking water falls under the NT government’s legal obligations to tenants. (ABC News: Isabella Higgins)
In short:
A ruling that the Northern Territory government is legally responsible for safe drinking water in remote communities has been upheld by the NT Court of Appeal.
It follows a successful appeal in 2023 brought by residents of Laramba, who initially took the government to court over high levels of uranium in their drinking water.
What's next?
The group of five Laramba residents are set to seek compensation in the civil court in 2025.
The Northern Territory Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling that the NT government is legally responsible for providing safe drinking water in remote communities, laying the foundation for a wider class action over remote housing.
Residents of the Central Australian remote community of Laramba first took the NT government to court in 2019 over the level of uranium in their drinking water, which was then three times above the Australian standard.
The NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NTCAT) initially ruled in the government’s favour, finding it was the NT’s Power and Water Corporation that was responsible for water supply, but Laramba residents were successful in their 2023 appeal to the NT supreme Court.
The NT government challenged that decision in the NT Court of Appeal earlier this year, arguing it was responsible only for housing itself, and it was Power and Water Corporation's legal responsibility to provide safe drinking water.
The small Aboriginal community of Laramba is located north-west of Alice springs. (ABC News: Chris Taylor)
On Christmas Eve, the court rejected that appeal.
In supporting the 2023 supreme Court decision, Court of Appeal judges Judith Kelly, sonia Brownhill and Meredith Day Huntingford agreed that water quality was a "habitability issue", and fell under the NT government’s legal obligations to tenants.
"If the uranium levels in the water supplied to the premises posed an actual and appreciable risk to the health and/or safety of the tenants in their ordinary residential day-to-day use of the premises, then those premises would not be habitable", the judges said in their ruling.
"It is not relevant … whether or not the water is supplied by a third party with statutory responsibility for the supply of essential services such as water."
A 2020 report found Laramba's water was contaminated with more than three times the uranium concentration limit recommended in national guidelines. (ABC News: Isaac Nowroozi)
solicitor for Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights, Daniel Kelly, said if the NT government did not appeal the decision to the High Court, the group of five Laramba residents he represented would be going back to the NTCAT in February to seek compensation.
"We now have to go back to the tribunal and resolve the question over whether three times the amount of uranium as allowed by the guidelines was a sufficient risk to safety," he said.
"We obviously believe that it was, and once that question is resolved by the tribunal, there could be some compensation for the people of Laramba."
A water treatment plant was constructed in Laramba in 2023, reducing the amount of uranium in the water to near-undetectable levels.
Mr Kelly said similar practical solutions would be much more impactful than any compensation awarded by the court.
"Certainly the amounts of compensation we're talking about are not life-changing, but what will be life-changing is ensuring everybody's got access to clean and safe drinking water," he said.
The NT Department of Housing has been contacted for comment.
Daniel Kelly says the Laramba residents plan to seek compensation. (ABC News: Peter Healy)
separate class action underway
Mr Kelly said he was hopeful the Laramba residents' successful case would support another class action against the NT's Department of Housing, which could have implications for the NT government's legal responsibilities for tenants of public housing.
"We're hopeful that this decision, in combination with that class action, can result in change right across the territory in all of those communities," he said.
That class action in the Federal Court is being led by two residents of Gunbalanya in West Arnhem Land, and is seeking compensation for rent, damages and orders for repairs to housing they say is unsafe, uninhabitable and subject to excessive rent.
Phi Finney McDonald director Tim Finney, who is representing the residents, said they were seeking to have the Federal Court rule on behalf of thousands of NT remote residents living in similar housing conditions.
“The case covers a lot of different issues around the quality of housing, but in effect the case is in part about the obligation of a department of the Northern Territory government to comply with the Residential Tenancies Act,” he said.
Filed in 2022, the class action alleges that a failure to repair houses and reduce rent amounts to unlawful racial discrimination.
“People who are employed by the government who are sent to remote communities, we allege are given much better quality of tenanted housing than the locals in those communities," Mr Finney said.
He said the case would not go to trial for some time, with both parties still refining their arguments around what the court should be asked to rule on.
The matter will continue to be heard in March.