Bid to boost Aboriginal futures

Kevin and Janelle Kidner did something extraordinary on this island off the northeast coast of Australia: They built their own home.

The couple salvaged scrap from public housing tear-downs; other materials had to be shipped a short trip from the Australian mainland. After a year of bending nails, the Kidners and their two children are free of the cramped government housing where most of this 3,000-strong Aboriginal community lives. Now they even have their own little fish pond.

"[Neighbors] were constantly driving by really slowly as if they hadn't seen a house built before," says Mr. Kidner, dressed in a yellow sports jersey. "They would say, 'You building it yourself? Good job!' "

For most residents, the ability not only to dream a better life but to make it happen has withered on Palm Island - along with most of the businesses, most of the jobs, and most of the drinking water.

Like a number of Aboriginal communities that are geographically and socially on the fringes, Palm Island owes some of its isolation to communal land ownership. But a growing chorus of islanders and outsiders say land reform could help foster businesses, open these communities to outside expertise, and encourage more residents like the Kidners to rely less on the government.

"Most people on Palm Island are economic wards of the state," says Bill Blackley, a teacher and former businessman who has lived on the island since 1972. "Instead of the poorest community in Australia, we should be the richest."

Potential is everywhere, radiating like the waves on Palm's idyllic beaches. The Great Barrier Reef lies just 14 nautical miles away, and wild horses roam the tropical hinterlands. All of this is just a 15-minute flight from Townsville, a major tourist launching pad on the mainland.

But tour operators and most private enterprises have been scared off by two problems that trouble many Aboriginal communities: a thicket of land-title issues and lack of local know-how.

Driving around Palm Island's few paved roads, Mr. Blackley points out a string of abandoned enterprises: a farm, a dairy, a makeshift motel, and a video-rental shop that was once his.

Just off the weed-choked central square, not far from a clocktower with frozen hands, Blackley owns a small clothing shop. This business too will soon be shuttered.

Blackley has no prospective buyers largely because of a Queensland law known as the Deed of Grant in Trust. Under the DOGIT, commercial and residential land can be leased only for short terms - up to 30 years - and then only with approval from the island's council.

"Who's going to come in and invest if you can't sell it?" says Blackley.

Scott McDougall, a consultant hired by the Queensland government, has pondered the same question.

Under debate now in parliament, Mr. McDougall's report sets its sights on the land laws because of the obstacle they present to business, government development, and the construction of private homes. For instance, the Kidners have no enforceable rights to occupancy.

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