Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the Australian Indigenous housing research identifying strengths and gaps in the body of literature published between 1970 and 2006. The findings of the review of the Community Housing Infrastructure Programme (CHIP), entitled Living in the Sunburnt Country, are cast against this overview in order to illustrate housing research strengths and weaknesses. The CHIP review introduced major reforms to Indigenous housing and makes a distinction between Indigenous housing in remote and non-remote locations. The CHIP review proposes to counter the Indigenous homelands movement by encouraging Indigenous migration from smaller settlements to those with greater access to services, a move from ‘country’ to the ‘big smoke’. This paper illustrates the significance of existing housing research to the development of Indigenous housing policy and programs and it identifies ways that housing research can be reshaped to inform current Indigenous housing reforms.