Residents in the Northern Territory have had a win in the supreme court over unsafe levels of uranium in their drinking water. The ruling overturns a previous decision by the civil and administrative tribunal which had found public housing landlords were not required to provide safe drinking water.
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00:00 This court action dates back to 2019 when residents in the remote community
00:06 of Laramba, about 200 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs, took their
00:10 landlord, the NT Department of Housing, to court over uranium found in their
00:15 drinking water. It was found to be at levels three times the safe drinking
00:20 limit. Now the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled in
00:25 favour of the landlord, finding that the government was not responsible for
00:30 providing safe drinking water to its tenants. However that decision was
00:34 overruled yesterday in the NT Supreme Court. Now lawyers for the remote
00:40 community say that this decision could set an important legal precedent for
00:44 other remote Australians who do not have access to safe drinking water. I caught
00:50 up with Dan Kelly earlier this morning. We think this is a very significant
00:54 decision. Essentially what it does is it decides who is responsible for providing
00:59 safe drinking water in remote communities in the Northern Territory.
01:03 And beyond that it ensures I think for renters across the Northern Territory
01:09 that they now have certainty that their landlord is required to provide the safe
01:13 drinking water. Now it's not yet clear what action the Northern Territory
01:17 Government will take or whether they will launch an appeal. They have said
01:21 that they are currently reviewing the decision and will consider their next
01:24 steps. Now for the community of Luramba they do have something to celebrate
01:29 because earlier this year in April a water treatment facility was built and
01:35 opened, meaning that they can now have access to safe drinking water again
01:40 after all these years. However it's a vastly different story for literally
01:45 dozens of other communities, particularly Indigenous communities across Australia.
01:50 Such as the community of Kiwikara in Northern WA which do not have access to
01:57 safe drinking water. They continue to get water trucked in sometimes on a daily
02:01 basis so that they can have access to safe drinking water.
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