Remote Housing Changes Follow High Court Ruling (NT)
In February 2026, the NT parliament passed the Housing Amendment Act 2026. The act was passed in response to a decision handed down by the High Court in December 2025 about the legality of decisions made within the Remote Rental Framework. This page outlines the changes to the NT Housing Act 1982 and the community responses to the move.
What are the changes?
Section 23 of the Housing Act 1982 gives the housing minister the power to determine the rent to be paid for a dwelling, a premises, or a class of dwellings or premises, subject to conditions that the minister thinks fit.
Under the 2026 changes, section 23 has been amended and now contains this provision:
23(3A) In making a determination under this section, the Minister is not required to afford any person, who would be affected by the determination, an opportunity to be heard in relation to the determination.
Reasons for the changes
The new provision has been introduced in direct response to a ruling handed down by the High Court late last year. The case concerned a challenge by four public housing tenants to the legality of the minister’s exercise of the power under section 23.
Between 2021 and 2023, the Remote Rental Framework was introduced in the Northern Territory, changing the way rent was calculated for public housing in remote communities.
Instead of being calculated on the basis of an individual’s income (as occurs with urban premises), under the Remote Rental Framework, rent for remote housing premises and dwellings was set at a flat rate based on the number of bedrooms in the house.
This change meant significant rent increases for public housing tenants in remote indigenous communities, who were already a significantly disadvantaged population.
The four plaintiffs in the matter argued that in exercising his power under section 23 of the Housing Act, the minister was obliged to afford procedural fairness to public housing tenants likely to be affected by the decision.
This meant that the minister should have informed tenants who would be affected by the rental increase of the proposed change and given them the opportunity to make submissions on how it would affect them.
The High Court agreed with the plaintiffs, finding that the minister’s decision to increase the rental amounts without consulting with them had been invalid, and that previous decisions about rental increases made under the Remote Rental Framework had been unlawful.
The court decision was welcomed by public housing tenants, as well as by the legal and community sectors, which were concerned about the potential injustice to remote tenants whose rents could be raised significantly without any consultation as to how this would affect them.
Community responses
The government’s decision to circumvent the High Court ruling by amending section 23 of the Housing Act 1982 has been met with widespread condemnation.
Aboriginal Housing NT said the changes reinforce disadvantage and called on the government to adopt a fair model developed with community input.
NT Shelter and NTCOSS also called for future models for setting rental increases to be developed through meaningful engagement with tenants and community representatives. They stated that rent rises contribute to increases in homelessness and place strain on community services.
NT Housing minister Steve Edgington said the urgent reform was needed to restore a legal basis for the setting of remote rental amounts after the High Court’s judgment. The government also pledged to calculate and repay any overcharged rent and to consult stakeholders in designing a new rent model to be in place by the end of 2026.
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Fernanda Dahlstrom is a writer, editor and lawyer. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Latrobe University), a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (College of Law), a Bachelor of Arts (The University of Melbourne) and a Master of Arts (Deakin University). Fernanda practised law for eight years, working in criminal law, child protection and domestic violence law in the Northern Territory, and in family law in Queensland.