STORY: Australian PM announces new fund for outback housing
SHOOTING TIME: March 14, 2024
DATELINE: March 15, 2024
LENGTH: 00:01:08
LOCATION: Canberra
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of an Australian apartment
2. various of an Australian community street

STORYLINE:

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has unveiled a new multi-billion-dollar fund to build new homes in outback Indigenous communities.

Albanese on Tuesday announced a joint 4 billion Australian dollar (2.6 billion U.S. dollar) investment from the federal and Northern Territory (NT) governments over the next 10 years for housing in remote communities across the NT.
   
Under the scheme, the government estimates that 270 new homes will be built every year, following on from a previous agreement that has built 650 homes in 73 remote NT communities since 2018.
   
Albanese said in a statement that the funding would help achieve the goals of the Closing the Gap framework, a government strategy to reduce Indigenous disadvantages.
   
Increasing the proportion of Indigenous Australians who do not live in homes that are overcrowded to 90 percent by 2031 is one of the framework's 17 targets.
   
"Today's announcement will improve housing conditions in remote communities and help close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians," Albanese said.
   
"The Northern Territory has the highest level of overcrowding in the country which we are working to halve."
   
More than half the investment in the fund will come from the federal government as well as additional 120 million Australian dollars (79.3 million dollars) to match the NT government's investment in continuing the delivery of housing improvements and essential infrastructure upgrades in remote communities.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Canberra.
(XHTV)