Essential community infrastructure - long overdue for investment

Remote swimming pools across the Northern Territory are not luxury amenities. They are essential community infrastructure, providing safe places to swim, improving health and wellbeing, supporting school attendance, and preventing drowning.

This new report, Sustaining Remote Swimming Pools in the Northern Territory: A Strategic Imperative, reveals that while these pools deliver profound social, health and safety benefits, years of underinvestment and unimplemented recommendations have left many at risk of closure - and communities are missing out as a result.

Led by Royal Life Saving Northern Territory, with support from Royal Life Saving Australia, the report draws on 15 years of safety audits, workforce reviews, and case studies across 19 remote swimming pools to present a compelling case for systemic reform.

Key Findings

• Remote pools are vital community assets, providing the only safe place to swim in many areas where rivers and waterholes are unsafe or inaccessible.
• The Northern Territory has Australia’s highest drowning rate per capita - nearly triple the national average.
• Almost half of all remote pools are over 30 years old, with three now closed and several others operating at minimal capacity.
• Most councils lack qualified staff, safety systems and business plans, leaving facilities vulnerable to shutdowns and safety risks.
• Despite this, every dollar invested can return up to $25 in social and health value, underscoring the missed potential of these assets.
• The majority of recommendations made in the 2010 Review of Swimming Pools in Remote Areas of the Northern Territory remain unimplemented.

Why It Matters

Remote pools are lifelines for their communities. They prevent drowning, provide safe recreation in extreme climates, improve health outcomes, and bring communities together.

When these facilities close or operate below standard, the impacts are far-reaching - increased drowning risk, reduced school engagement, and diminished social and health outcomes. This report makes clear that neglect has a measurable cost - both social and human.

Recommendations for the Sector

To reverse decline and build sustainability, the report calls for:

1. A Territory-wide workforce and mentoring strategy, ensuring locally trained and supported staff.
2. A coordinated operational support model, to deliver consistent safety, governance, and technical oversight.
3. A Remote Pool Safety and Infrastructure Fund, to address maintenance backlogs and operational shortfalls.
4. Recognition of remote pools as essential public health infrastructure, included in government funding frameworks.
5. Evaluation of social return, linking pool access to measurable health, education, and social outcomes.

The Way Forward

The findings are clear: these facilities save lives, strengthen communities, and deliver extraordinary value. But without urgent, coordinated reform, more pools will close - and more communities will lose a cornerstone of their wellbeing.

Remote swimming pools in the Northern Territory deliver profound social returns, yet remain chronically underfunded, under-resourced, and at risk of failure.

This report provides the roadmap for change.