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 of the houses were among 10 properties were sold at auction in Mount Isa on Tuesday, for a total of $1.13m.
They were owned by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation for Welfare Services (ATSICWS), a not-for-profit which has accrued more than $1m in unpaid rates over three years. Not all those sold on Tuesday belonged to ATSICWS.
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.
Reading, who is terminally ill, told Guardian Australia she will be “forced out” with “nowhere to go” when her home is sold.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email“The whole situation is not good … it’s quite dire,” she said. “We’re at the pointy end where if anyone is gonna do anything, they need to pull a rabbit out of their hats now.
“I’ve contacted everyone. I contacted the minister, our local MP’s office, and another minister but they passed the buck to the housing minister.
“I haven’t heard a thing back from anyone.”
Kerry Major is also facing eviction. 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.
“I had no hot water and I told the director of the organisation that I had no hot water,” she said. “The house was falling apart and I’ve been without water for two and a half years, and I’ve been without a stove for two and a half years.
“All the houses that we’re living in … they’re all run down. One house has to be demolished because there’s no way anybody can fix it.
“We’re not only looking at these 20 families but our mob are all connected. 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.
Queensland law allows for councils to sell land if rates or charges have been overdue for at least three years.
A spokesperson for council said it had attempted to communicate with the ATSICWS board “via mail, email, text and phone conversation over a three year period” to recover the unpaid debts.
“To date the board has not provided an explanation as to why they have been collecting rent from their tenants and have not been paying for rates, water supply or waste collection for many years,” they said. “There have been no payments made for these properties for many years.
“Despite all attempts over many years to resolve the situation, the Corporation now owes the Mount Isa community approximately $1.2million.
“There have been no payments made for these properties for many years.”
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 met with Mount Isa residents late last week and told them the “commonwealth has been unable to find a resolution to stop the auctions from going ahead”.
“The minister’s main concern from the outset has been the welfare of affected families,” they said.
The independent senator Lidia Thorpe has called on the federal government to buy the homes at auction under the Lands Acquisitions Act 1989.
Thorpe said the federal government had been aware of the unpaid rates for a number of years .
“It’s all on the federal government, it’s all on minister McCarthy and the prime minister for not bailing out these 15 homes, these 15 families,” she said. “For $600,000, they could have ensured families stayed in their homes.”
A spokesperson for Queensland’s Department of Housing and Public Works said it had not been “approached by ATSICWS or the Mount Isa City Council to acquire the properties listed for auction”.
They said the department was working with local service providers to help tenants facing eviction.
“The Queensland government’s priority continues to be supporting impacted tenants and the Mount Isa Housing Service Centre is working with individuals and families who reach out for housing support,” they said.
• This article was amended on 8 September 2026. Council rates had been unpaid for more than three years, not more than five. An earlier version of this article also suggested that all 10 properties sold on Tuesday were owned by ATSICWS; not all were.
