New Maningrida suburb
Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs Senator Nigel Scullion fears a suburb of new Indigenous houses in Maningrida will be isolated during the coming wet season with the road to it likely to be impassable during the wet season due to a startling stuff up in road works.
Senator Scullion visited Maningrida last week and toured the new suburb but was dismayed to see the road had three deep dips which only had cement bases at the bottom with no pipes or culvets to handle the Territory’s monsoon rains.
“This new suburb will be cut off in the wet season and the cement likely to be washed out so it will isolated from all of the services at Maningrida,” Senator Scullion said.
“In the press release sent out by the Minister for Public and Affordable Housing Chris Burns basking in the glory of this new suburb it states the 2010-11 wet season and Cyclone Carlos caused significant delays to the subdivision works and yet they didn’t feel the need to put in some pipes to handle the torrent of water that will flow down these gullies cutting the road off.
“It was announced yesterday that 19 families were presented with house keys but when I visited last week locals told me around 35 homes were all but ready to move in and cynically told me they were waiting for someone to come and have a big opening.
“Minister Burns even said 50 homes were ready and yet with a crisis of overcrowded housing in Maningrida only 19 families can move in now?
“All that was on top of issues with the power lines being too high for that close to the airport – almost laughably a new suburb was built before power was connected to it – that backward method would not be allowed anywhere like Brisbane, Sydney or Canberra.
“Why we our first Australians have to live with second class services like this?”
