AHNT Media Release
ABORIGINAL TERRITORIANS MATTER
We condemn the recent comment made by Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro that the YiSSA homelessness facility is a waste of money. The Chief Minister’s comments are hurtful to the hundreds of families who rely on YiSSA for safety.
Evidence shows that providing stable housing and targeted support services is less costly than relying on emergency, crisis, and reactive responses to homelessness, which generate higher ongoing costs across policing, health, and child protection systems.
The Australian Government has put $3.5 million on the table to secure the $6.5 million purchase of YiSSA infrastructure. This offer would keep the nation’s largest and highly respected 300-room homelessness facility operating and servicing the Territory’s most vulnerable. We urge the Northern Territory Government to show true leadership and rise above party politics. We call on the Chief Minister and her colleagues to lead with mercy, compassion and justice and continue to negotiate with the Australian Government in good faith to secure YISSA’s survival for the good of all Territorians.
Closing YiSSA does not make homelessness disappear. It pushes people into already severely overcrowded housing, rough sleeping and homelessness, and places greater pressure on the Territory’s homelessness system which is already at breaking point.
Pushing hundreds of already vulnerable people and families into homelessness places unsustainable pressure on our hospitals. Medical professionals have made it clear that YiSSA provides much needed support to people travelling from remote communities for specialist treatment and provides somewhere for patients to be safely discharged.
Only weeks after passing the “Every Child Matters Bill”, the NT CLP Government appears to be leaving the most vulnerable Territory families to face the instability and uncertainty of not having a safe place to live.
Inevitably, closing YiSSA will increase pressure on the Territory’s already overloaded justice system. As reported in the 2024-2025 Australian Government Productivity Commission Report on Government Services, the Northern Territory Government spends more than $121,000 per year to keep one person locked up in a Northern Territory prison.
With people languishing on remand for months, we ask what kind of future are we investing in? Actively taking away safe housing options while building the infrastructure to imprison more (overwhelmingly Aboriginal) people is not addressing crime, it is failing to address the underlying issues that contribute to offending such as housing insecurity, unemployment, disengagement from education and poor access to services.
Decades of evidence has shown that safer communities require investment in housing, health, families, early intervention, culturally safe services, and Aboriginal community-controlled solutions.
ABORIGINAL TERRITORIANS HAVE A VOICE AND VOTE For more Information contact Leeanne Caton 0488 273 013
WE ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING
MEMBERSHIP AND
EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
TO BE A
NTAECC DIRECTOR
APONT
NTAECC
After years of lobbying and implementation of a funding agreement administered by the education departments
of NT Labor and CLP governments’ the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT Aboriginal Corporation (APONT) has established a peak representative body for education for the NT. The name of the legal entity is the NT Aboriginal Education Consultative Council Aboriginal Corporation ICN 11857.
The corporation will be known as NTAECC for consistency and alignment with the names of Indigenous peak
bodies for education around Australia. NTAECC was incorporated as a legal entity under the CATSI Act in April 2026. NTAECC will be an advisory body to governments to ensure our voice is heard when it comes to education for Aboriginal people in the NT.
Objectives
1. Enter into a partnership agreement with the NT Department of Education and Training and become a member of NATSIEC
2. Establish partnership approaches and advocate to ensure all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Northern Territory receive quality, culturally appropriate and accessible education at all levels
3. Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to lead education initiatives which transmit their histories, languages, traditions and culture through education, training and learning
4. Build education and learning into community values, norms and practices as the basis of building knowledge, skills and capabilities to improve economic and social prosperity in Aboriginal communities
5. Support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, staff and students in their education, training and learning aspirations, including the provision of appropriate career pathways and pathways for further education
and training
6. Advance Commonwealth and Northern Territory Government commitments to Closing the Gap Priority
Reform 1—Formal partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
7. Advance Commonwealth and Northern Territory Government commitments to Closing the Gap priority reforms and socio-economic outcome areas that target education
8. Ensure free, prior and informed consent in decision making and when engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities regarding decisions about education, training and learning issues
Governance
In the first three months after incorporation the corporation will be governed by an interim board of directors with up to 12 members. The interim board of directors will:
1. Develop strategies to attract membership of the corporation
2. Represent NAETECC at Territory and National education forums, and
3. Act as an advisory body to Territory and Commonwealth governments
The term of the interim board of directors will end at the first general meeting due three months after the date of incorporation. At the first general meeting the term of the interim board of directors will end and the positions will be declared vacant. The members in attendance at the meeting will elect and appoint a new board of directors for a term of 2 years.
The corporation will ask members to appoint directors who are resident in regions throughout the NT. The appointed directors will have experience and/or qualifications in specialist areas of education and have:
• current or previous employment in the NT education system
• cultural knowledge and authority
Together, the directors will have experience and/or qualifications in early childhood education, primary education, secondary education, vocational education and training, higher education and homeland schooling.
Membership
The corporation will have two classes of membership
A Full Member must be:
• at least 15 years old
• an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person that permanently resides in the Northern Territory
An Associate Member must be:
• at least 18 years old
• a person who is not eligible to be a full member
• a permanent resident in the Northern Territory
Directors:
There will be a maximum of 12 directors
A director must be:
• at least 18 years old
• be a Full Member
IF THIS IS YOU - WE ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING MEMBERSHIP AND
EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO BE A NTAECC DIRECTOR
Please complete the membership form and the director nomination if you would like to be appointed as a director.
Application for membership form and
Board MemberNomination form
Please send forms or if you have questions please see contact details below:
education@apont.org.au
Phone: 08 7936 8620
9A Rowling Street, Casuarina NT 0810
