Until 2014–15, the State Government supported essential service delivery in about 80 remote Aboriginal communities, with the primary criteria being that the community’s permanent population was 50 residents or more. Since the transfer from the Commonwealth Government of responsibility for its Municipal and Essential Services program from 2015–16 on, the State Government has been supporting essential and municipal service delivery in about 165 communities. This support ranges from 14 communities that receive electricity supply and distribution from Horizon Power, to small outstations that receive a diesel fuel subsidy to run a generator.

The State Government does not fund any services or provide any funding to the smallest 110 or so remote communities, although any of the estimated 400 permanent residents of those communities may access universal services such as hospitals and schools elsewhere. With the exception of Ngaanyatjarra Lands communities, which have their own local government, remote communities receive few, if any, services from a local government.

Given the complexity of current arrangements and their ad hoc and unusual nature, it will take some time for the State Government and communities to develop more effective arrangements that result in better essential and municipal services being delivered which lead to better living conditions, together with household obligations and charges that are consistent with those that apply in a region.

The State Government will apply the following principles to the provision of essential and municipal services in remote Aboriginal communities:

1. Focus on larger communities: 80 per cent of the State’s remote community population live in the largest 50 communities (which all contain at least 50 permanent residents). Larger communities, even if isolated, offer the prospect of greater long-term sustainability due to better economies of scale and demand.
2. Tiered services and service standards: based on community size and location, which will enable larger Aboriginal communities to receive services commensurate to those received in settlements of similar size and location elsewhere in the State.
3. Household metering: increased service levels would be accompanied by individual household metering and the tariff charges that otherwise applies in the region.
4. Capped numbers: the State Government would not increase the number of communities that receive services, and may reduce that number in the application of these principles.
5. Transition to self-sufficiency: if any community receives services but would not receive them in the future under these principles, the State Government would support the community to transition to self-sufficiency.
6. Transition to become regional towns: the State Government would consult a small number of larger, economically-sustainable Aboriginal communities to see if they want to become regional towns to facilitate better community servicing and future investment.

These principles do not limit or affect access to country for cultural and family purposes.