An apartment developer has introduced a 'pay the rent' scheme that imposes a financial contribution toward Aboriginal organisations upon owners.
Not-for-profit development group Nightingale Housing has completed 21 projects across Australia, with most of them concentrated in Victoria.
Some of the apartments, like the ones at the Preston development in north-east Melbourne, are as small as 27 square metres.
Completed last year, the 'teilhaus' apartments were billed as being a 'fraction of the carbon and a fraction of the cost' of a typical one-bedroom dwelling, and sold via priority ballot to means-tested first home buyers for $280,000 each.
Nightingale Housing co-founder Jeremy McLeod said in promotional material the building was powered off 100 per cent renewables and had 'no operational carbon attached to it'.
Apartment owners must pay an annual fee to Aboriginal organisations or land councils.
'Every resident in this building pays rent annually to the traditional owners, in acknowledgment that this country was stolen, that these lands were never ceded, and that there's no treaty with the traditional owners,' he said.
In response to questions, Nightingale Housing said: 'As an acknowledgement that the land we build on was never ceded from First Nations Australians, Nightingale Housing requires all residents to "Pay the Rent".
Residents at Nightingale's Preston apartments 'pay the rent' to honour the Traditional Owners of the land
Apartments at Nightingale Housing's Preston development (pictured) in north-east Melbourne are as small as 27 square metres
'It's a way to compensate First Nations Australians for the resources that are drawn from their land,' a spokesperson said.
'We hope to show the Australian property market that we can support First Nations peoples' self determination through collective impact.
'Each Nightingale home and business is required to pay $100 per year as part of their Owners Corporation fees to First Nations Organisations or Land Councils.'
The scheme applies to most Nightingale projects exceptNightingale Marrickville, which is a build-to-rent project, and Nightingale Bowden, which includes 50 per cent social and affordable housing, and three other buildings which predate the introduction of the scheme.
'Nightingale is a small organisation that is constantly evolving to deliver housing in a more equitable way.'
The scheme was inspired by a campaign from the Pay the Rent Grassroots Collective, a charity which encourages non-Indigenous Australians to regularly donate a portion of their income.
Supporters of the campaign include feminist author Clementine Ford and high-profile independent senator and activist Lidia Thorpe.
'We need to stop paying lip service to decolonisation and start paying the rent to the first nations people,' Ms Ford said previously.
Supporters of a similar Pay the Rent campaign included Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe (pictured)
Nightingale Housing co-founder Jeremy McLeod (pictured) said the developer operates a 'pay the rent scheme' with owners
Conservative commentator Prue MacSween (pictured) dismissed Nightingale's pay the rent scheme as a 'marketing exercise'
Ms Thorpe said: 'Pay the rent from grassroots for grassroots. No strings attached to government agenda. It assists sovereign grassroots fight the many campaigns and struggles we face everyday.'
Cara Peek, a Yawuru/Bunuba woman and lawyer who co-founded Cultural IQ, told Daily Mail Australia she supported the scheme being introduced for apartment owners.
'It is uniquely accessible to renters, landholders, community members, and strata’s to make a real time difference,' Ms Peek said.
'I believe it should be rolled out to all commercial and even charitable land holdings such as churches to ensure traditional owners across the nation are able to generate revenue on lands they are no longer able to control.'
But conservative commentator Prue MacSween dismissed Nightingale's introduction of the scheme as a 'marketing exercise'.
'There clearly are some people residing in this country - probably all the YES voters in the failed referendum - who love the idea and have bought into the concept,' Ms MacSween told Daily Mail Australia.
'No one has forced them to purchase a property under this scheme, and they probably wear it as a badge of honour, sleeping soundly in their community of like-minded self-righteous neighbours. Good luck to them.
'What I find most objectionable is this property developer’s claim that it builds on “stolen land”.
The Preston apartments were billed as being a 'fraction of the carbon and a fraction of the cost' of a typical one-bedroom dwelling
'The fact that they have come up with this schtick is a ploy that sets them apart. It is a marketing exercise that probably works well for the anonymous people who formed the company.
'Nightingale’s claim that it operates in an economy bound by systemic racism is despicable and tiresome and an affront to the many generations of Australians who have been born here and display tolerance to all others.
'The Indigenous Industry continues to thrive in this country, with billions disappearing in some gap which never seems to close for the poor souls living in remote communities.'
Nightingale has a further three projects under construction in the Melbourne suburbs of Brunswick, Coburg and Coburg North, which will operate the 'Pay the Rent' scheme, according to its website.
The company's sole development in NSW - Nightingale Marrickville, which does not operate the scheme - was designed just for renters with studio apartments as small as 22 square metres.
The project was made possible through a partnership with Fresh Hope Communities, the benevolent arm of Churches of Christ in NSW and ACT, which owns the land.
Under the deal it was able to offer rent well below market value - $395 to $440 per week.
In October the developer called in restructuring firm Rodgers Reidy to help it broker a deal with creditors.
Debts included $410,000 owed to the Australian Taxation office. The restructure was finished in December and a deal was reached with the ATO.
WHY SOME ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS WANT YOU TO 'PAY THE RENT'
This statement comes from the Pay The Rent organisation, which outlines why they believe non-Indigenous landowners should contribute financially as a form of giving back for living on land that was taken from First Nations peoples without consent or treaty.
Australia is founded on land that was stolen from Indigenous people. The wealth that has been generated by that theft is disproportionately distributed. All people who live here today, or who have lived here in the past, have not benefited equally from the continuing dispossession of Indigenous people. Indeed, many are deliberately and profoundly marginalised from power and the spoils of colonialism. However, some uncomfortable facts remain:
Every day, people consume food grown on Indigenous land or harvested from Indigenous seas; they drink water that flows across or under Indigenous land.Every day, people who are not Indigenous to this land take shelter in homes built upon it; they socialise, gather, and make family and community here.Every day, business is conducted on this land for the benefit of non-Indigenous people.Every day, land belonging to Indigenous people is traded for profit.
This land was never empty; the sovereignty of First Nations people was never ceded. Despite centuries of attempted genocide that continues to this day, Indigenous people have managed to hold onto and nurture culture and connections with country. At the same time, Indigenous health and wellbeing have been devastated; Aboriginal people are significantly more likely to be incarcerated, over-policed, to die in custody, for children to be separated from their family, and are more likely to die prematurely from preventable illnesses or to die by suicide. While governments and individuals have said Sorry to the Stolen Generations, they have taken no meaningful action towards making right, nor towards preventing further harm.
Paying the Rent is a step towards acknowledging these facts. It is part of a process that all non-Indigenous people – individually and collectively – need to enter into if we are to move towards justice, truth, equality and liberation for First Nations people.
