Abstract: The Northern Territory Government is developing and implementing a new housing model in remote Aboriginal communities. This paper describes the NT Remote Indigenous Housing Approach and investigates where the housing model has the potential to improve service delivery and other areas where policy adjustments may be required to provide a better ‘fit’ between the model and remote and diverse Aboriginal communities. This working paper is part of initial research for Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (DKCRC) Core Project (CP) 5: ‘Desert Services that Work: Demand Responsive Services for Desert Settlements’. An aspect of CP5 research in the Northern Territory (NT) is: ‘the implementation of new NT models of housing tenancy and asset management and their interface with tenant demand’.1 Field research is being conducted in two Aboriginal communities (Lajamanu and Ali Curung) to explore the fit of the NT Government’s remote public housing model with capacities and conditions in the two communities. This working paper examines NT Government progress on implementing the NT remote Aboriginal housing program.2 The principles of the ‘new housing system for the bush’ were laid out in the Memorandum of Understanding between the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory Governments in respect of Indigenous Housing, Accommodation and Related Services of September 2007 (MoU 2007) and include that: • all new remote Aboriginal housing will be publicly owned by Territory Housing • leases will be able to be established over properties • existing housing will transfer to publicly owned Territory Housing when it meets the remote public housing framework standard • the Northern Territory Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) will apply to tenancy agreements and will govern the rights and responsibilities of both landlords and tenants.