A rural Queensland council is auctioning off 24 homes to recover unpaid rates, potentially forcing First Nations families into homelessness. Residents claim they were left in the dark about the debt, which stretches back years, until five months ago. The first 10 houses is being put up for auction in Mount Isa on Tuesday.
They are owned by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation for Welfare Services (ATSICWS), a not-for-profit which has accrued almost $1m in unpaid rates over five years. Leonie Reading, whose husband is a traditional owner of the north-west Queensland region, has lived in her home with three children for the past 11 years. Reading said she had only been told in April that the ATSICWS had not paid rates to Mount Isa city council since 2021.
Reading, who is terminally ill, told Guardian Australia she will be “forced out” with “nowhere to go” when her home is sold. I contacted the minister, our local MP’s office, and another minister but they passed the buck to the housing minister. She said she had not paid rent in the past two and a half years because the ATSICWS stopped undertaking maintenance on her home.
Major said the auctions would leave many in the Indigenous community homeless. One house has to be demolished because there’s no way anybody can fix it. I don’t only have the people that live in my house here all the time, I’ve got a lot of other families who come through.” Major said most of the residents facing eviction had yet to find alternative accommodation and securing private rentals in thecity town was “near impossible”.
In August 2025, ATSICWS was fined $15,000 after being convicted of 12 breaches of the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006, namely failing to lodge annual reports with the Registrar of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations. The director of ATSICWS declined to comment when contacted by Guardian Australia. Initially, the council planned to auction all 24 properties from 1 July, including 15 occupied by Aboriginal families.
In June, the minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, told parliament the government was “working on this on several levels”, which included approaching Indigenous Business Australia to help the families, and contacting the Queensland government and Mount Isa council to find a resolution. On Monday, a spokesperson from McCarthy’s office said she had travelled to Mount Isa late last week but told residents the “commonwealth has been unable to find a resolution to stop the auctions from going ahead”. The independent senator Lidia Thorpe has called on the federal government to buy the homes at auction under the Lands Acquisitions Act 1989.
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