Advocates want the NT’s Howard Springs quarantine facility to be used as a refuge for women and children fleeing violence.

Like many other jurisdictions, NT's rates of domestic and family violence rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving many women's shelters with few options to house their clients.

But recently, the number of residents at the territory’s Howard Springs quarantine facility has fallen to just a handful.

Susan Crane, chief executive of the Dawn House women's shelter in Darwin, says this creates an opportunity. 

“Private rentals have gone through the roof... and there are long waitlists for Territory Housing properties,” she has told reporters.  

“There must be ways to transform [the centre], to make it more accessible for women and children to live there longer term.”

The quarantine centre has already been used to house COVID-infected women and children fleeing violence. With fewer and fewer infected residents staying at the centre, it is believed that the risk for people being housed there without COVID would be low. 

The NT's new Minister for the Prevention of Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, Kate Worden, has suggested she is open to discussions on the idea, saying her department is “in constant communication with the sector, discussing ways to curb domestic, family and sexual violence”. 

“The Centre for National Resilience has been a valuable resource in both the Northern Territory and Australia's response to COVID-19,” she said.

“Planning is underway regarding site utilisation as the Territory moves towards transitioning from a pandemic to an endemic.”