• Health

  51.3%

  of First Nations households in very remote NT needed at least one more bedroom.

  The NT also carries Australia’s highest recorded ARF and RHD prevalence. Crowding is the reason for the work. We claim no outcome from it.

  ABS Census 2021, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander QuickStats, Very Remote Australia (NT)

• Enterprise

  3.1%

  of employed First Nations people in the NT managed their own business, the lowest share of any state or territory.

  A proxy for how little enterprise is locally owned. Official data does not isolate community-led production.

  ABS, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who managed their own business, 2021 Census

• Employment

  38%

  of First Nations people aged 15 to 64 in very remote Australia were employed, against 68% in major cities.

  Whole numbers, as the publisher prints them. The 2021 Census, a different instrument, returns a lower very-remote rate.

  AIHW, Employment of First Nations people, from the ABS National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey 2022 to 2023

• Waste

  275,190 tonnes

  of NT waste went to landfill in the year to June 2024, more than half of everything processed.

  WRINT/AEAS report, §6 Material Flow Analysis

Goods on Country is a DGR1 charity led by 100% Indigenous Directors.

Board

• 

  Kristy Bloomfield

  Director · Arrernte Country

  Alongside her board role, Kristy leads the Oonchiumpa relationship: designing products in community and developing the Alice Springs production and youth training pathway.

• 

  Audrey Deemal

  Director · Dhirrtharr Warra woman from Hope Vale

• 

  Jeremy Donovan

  Director · Kuku-Yalanji and Gumbaynggirr

The board carries responsibility for purpose, assets and organisational decisions.

Staff

• Nicholas Marchesi

  Co-founder and project lead

  Product development, manufacturing and community relationships.

• Benjamin Knight

  Co-founder, story and technology

  Evidence, storytelling, systems and partnerships.

Community organisations lead their enterprises and decide how to use their sales income. Goods is developing shared support in production, buying, design, training, finance and communications.

We are working on making the community organisations that take Goods beds or run a production facility members of Goods on Country, the charity. Members vote at the charity's general meetings, so the organisations holding the beds and running the facilities would have a say in how Goods on Country is run. It is a working idea, being worked through with the board. Nothing has changed yet.

Each stop changed the product, the price, or who does the work.

1. 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   01

   Before the first bed, there was a health question.

   Ninga Mia, Kalgoorlie, WA

   In 2018, Nic heard paediatric cardiologist Dr Boe Reményi explain how environmental health shapes preventable disease. Not that a bed is a medical device. The question was more practical: what are people sleeping on, and can it be cleaned, repaired and kept off the ground? At Ninga Mia, Gloria Turner made that question real.

   

   “Sleep on a good mattress. For the back, the legs, the muscles.”

   Read more+
2. 

   02

   Linda Turner told us what had been missing: nobody had asked.

   Tennant Creek, NT

   We kept coming back to Tennant Creek. Over years, Goods listened, changed the beds and delivered more than 100 Basket Beds. Linda Turner's question changed how the work happened from then on: ask first, then build.

   

   “We've never been asked what sort of house we'd like to live in.”

   Read more+
3. 

   03

   Dianne named it Pakkimjalki Kari.

   Tennant Creek, NT

   People in Tennant Creek asked Goods to look beyond beds. Dianne helped shape a one-button washing-machine prototype, then gave it a Warumungu name.

   

   “I will know where to come. If I need to wash my blanket, I don't have to go do it in town. Laundry, do it here.”

   Read more+
4. 

   

   

   

   04

   The price is only the beginning.

   Palm Island, QLD

   A bed reaches Palm Island by barge. Freight can push a durable bed close to $1,000, while cheaper beds cost less upfront but need replacing sooner.

   

   “You have to bring them on the barge. You can't just take them on the boat. You have to pay for freight. It all adds up.”

   Read more+
5. 

   

   

   

   05

   Mykel built the bed he slept on that night.

   Utopia homelands, NT · May 2026

   He turned the finished bed over in his hands. Bottle lids had become something strong enough to sleep on. By the end of the second day, he had built seven. We asked if he would come back every day if there were a place here to make them. "Yeah, I'll be rocking up every day to make them."

   Watch

   

   “I sleep in the tent but look, there's my house or the rubbish house ... No mattress. Look, the bed was mine. Just for chucking us blanket, that's all, that's all I was sleeping.”

   Read more+
6. 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   06

   We pressed, routed and packed the parts at the Goods on Country facility in Queensland. In Maningrida, young people turned them into forty beds.

   The Goods on Country facility in Queensland, and Maningrida, Arnhem Land NT

   Defy Design supplied the shredded recycled plastic. We pressed, routed and packed the parts at the Goods on Country facility in Queensland, then sent them to Maningrida. Young people assembled the forty beds with community.

   

   “A good night's sleep means the kids are fresh and ready for school the next day.”

   Read more+
7. 

   

   

   

   07

   Oonchiumpa asked what it would take to make the beds themselves.

   Alice Springs and Utopia, NT

   Oonchiumpa already runs its own business and works with young people. Its team has built beds with Goods and expressed interest in production. The next conversation is practical: could the community entity sell the beds while Goods supplies equipment, training and support?

   The Utopia delivery story

   

   “We want to create a safe space for our young people. There's a lack of housing, which leads to a lack of sleep, which leads to low school attendance.”

   Read more+

The next step is to move more of the making closer to Country.

540

beds deployed, 177 Stretch and 363 Basket

23

washing machines in community

11

communities served

3,540

kg recycled HDPE, 177 Stretch Beds at 20 kg design mass

Waste plastic becomes a durable bed through one compact, teachable production line. The Goods on Country facility in Queensland. Walk the line.

Full screen

+

Sort and shred

Clean HDPE and PP plastic is sorted, then granulated into consistent flakes. The shredder and the chip bins sit in the first container.

+

CNC cut and finish

The cooled sheet is cut into flat-pack bed parts on the router and every edge is smoothed. Offcuts go back to the shredder.

+

Heat, press and cool

Flakes are spread evenly, melted into a sheet, pressed to thickness, then cooled under pressure. The red press is the heart of the line.

+

Assemble, test and pack

Parts meet steel poles and canvas, the bed is checked, then packed flat for the journey to community. Finished sheets and kits are stored in the last container.

1234

One line in four containers. Press a station.

1. 1Sort and shred+

   Clean HDPE and PP plastic is sorted, then granulated into consistent flakes. The shredder and the chip bins sit in the first container.

2. 2CNC cut and finish+

   The cooled sheet is cut into flat-pack bed parts on the router and every edge is smoothed. Offcuts go back to the shredder.

3. 3Heat, press and cool+

   Flakes are spread evenly, melted into a sheet, pressed to thickness, then cooled under pressure. The red press is the heart of the line.

4. 4Assemble, test and pack+

   Parts meet steel poles and canvas, the bed is checked, then packed flat for the journey to community. Finished sheets and kits are stored in the last container.

1. 

   01Sort and shred

2. 

   02Heat, press and cool

3. 

   03CNC cut and finish

4. 

   04Assemble, test and pack

Waste plastic becomes a durable bed through one compact, teachable production line.

Oonchiumpa held the build and the relationships. Urapuntja staff led the final local delivery and the feedback that now shapes what comes next.

• Enterprise

  Beds paid for, and enterprises trading

  320bedsverified

  320 beds and 9 washing machines paid for, A$273,966 including GST.

  Today 320 (verified); year one plan 400 (target).

  Year one plan: 400 beds as community stock, four organisations selling. target

  Settled invoices in Xero. The organisation's own sales record. Community enterprises trading today: 0.

• Paid work

  Paid hours of making

  2,080hoursestimate

  2,080 hours by Goods staff over six months.

  Today 2080 (estimate); year one plan 800 (modelled).

  Year one plan: 800 paid hours a year for 400 beds at two hours a bed. modelled

  Ben's estimate today: eight hours a day, five days a week, six months, two people. The daily production log and wages paid from here.

• Recycling

  Plastic kept out of landfill

  3,540kgmodelled

  3,540 kg design mass in 177 Stretch Beds. Weighed: 0 kg.

  Today 3540 (modelled); year one plan 8000 (modelled).

  Year one plan: 8 tonnes for 400 beds at 20 kg a bed. modelled

  Shred weighed in and parts weighed out, every batch.

• Health and daily life

  Beds in homes, and follow-ups done

  540bedsverified

  540 beds in homes across 11 communities. Follow-ups done: 0.

  Today 540 (verified); year one plan 50 (target).

  Year one plan: 50 beds followed up at delivery, six weeks and three months. target

  The register. Consented follow-up visits. Clinical outcomes need their own study.

One of four measures is verified today. The first year is what makes the other three measurable. Every figure carries its label: verified, estimate, modelled or target.

Philanthropy buys the first beds. QBE builds the two facilities. A loan carries the first-year running cost and is repaid from the beds Goods sells. Customers pay the community organisation, and that money stays there.

Where are they selling? Who actually buys the beds?

The places that buy beds for people: health services, schools and housing providers. Four organisations have already paid for 320 beds on invoice: a national research centre, a foundation buying for the Utopia homelands, a homeland school company and a health service. Each community organisation sells its beds under its own rules, to whoever it chooses, and the buyer pays the community organisation. We do not add requests together into a demand number. We say what people have done.Partly answered.

Is A$750,000 the income?

No. It is the raise: QBE A$300,000 for two production facilities, and A$300,000 of bed money for the first 400 beds, three grants each buying 133 beds at $750 with the support and the freight inside the price, and a loan of A$150,000 for the first-year running cost, repaid from the beds Goods on Country sells. Sales money belongs to the community organisation that sells the bed, and none of it is income to Goods on Country.

What does the money actually buy?

Three things, kept apart. A loan of A$150,000 carries the first-year running cost and is repaid from the beds Goods on Country sells. QBE’s A$300,000 buys two community production facilities, A$150,000 each as a planning allowance; no site has been quoted. The other A$300,000 buys the first 400 beds made at the Goods on Country facility in Queensland, 100 for each of 4 community organisations: three grants, each 133 beds at $750. The work around every bed and the freight sit inside the price of a bed. The beds are the community organisations’ to sell.

What does QBE’s money actually buy?

Two proposed production facilities, where communities are ready. Palm Island and Maningrida first; Tennant Creek, Mount Isa and others as options. A$150,000 per site is a planning allowance; no site has been quoted. Sites, costs, approvals and agreements are still to settle, and we say so.

Why not just give the beds away?

Because then the beds are a delivery and nothing starts. We are trusting community organisations to take the beds, sell what they decide to sell, and build their own future with the money. The funder acts once. After that the money goes round inside the community. Some beds still go to families who need one tonight; that mix is the community’s call.

What does it cost to make a bed?

About A$262 on the flat-pack route: tab sheets pressed at the Goods on Country facility in Queensland, leg panels bought in, kits dispatched flat and assembled in community. A bed sells for A$750 and nothing is added to it: Goods on Country absorbs A$100 of freight and A$100 of facilitation out of its share, and A$288 reaches the organisation. When a community organisation sells a bed, the customer pays it directly and the money stays there. The A$262 is provisional until the bought leg-panel yield is confirmed, and nobody has made fifty in a row at working pace and kept the receipts. That is the measured run.Partly answered.

What does a community organisation do with the money?

Whatever it decides, after costs. More beds, paid local work, or making their own. Where a community is ready, a production facility comes to them, and then the next thing they choose to make. The money never comes back to Goods on Country.

Who ends up owning the making?

Ownership is a pathway, and we say so on every page. Goods on Country holds the products, the IP, the contracts and the equipment today, under an Indigenous-led board. Each community organisation holds its beds, its sales money and its decisions. Six months into a site we ask four questions: who holds the keys, who runs the payroll, who invoices the buyer, and whether the community decides what gets made and who works on it. Partial counts as no. Until the answers are yes, we do not claim ownership has moved. We are working on making the community organisations that take Goods beds or run a production facility members of Goods on Country, the charity. It is a working idea, being worked through with the board. Nothing has changed yet.

What if a community sells none of its beds?

Then every bed meets a need and there is no sales money. That is a real outcome and it is the community organisation’s call. The trade does not start there, and we would not push it. What we do first is agree the rules, so that choice is made on purpose and everyone knows what follows from it.

Is anything signed?

No. The raise is asked and nothing is secured. What is real is the paid trade, 320 beds on invoice from four buyers, and 540 beds already in community. We say that first, every time.

Which organisation does the money go to?

The Butterfly Movement Ltd, trading as Goods on Country, the registered charity behind the work since 2012, with deductible gift status. Everything sits there: the products, the IP, the contracts, the making, the sales, the money and the evidence. Community partners are independent organisations with their own boards, never part of the charity, and buyer receipts stay with them.

Which entity applies to QBE and receives the grant?

The Butterfly Movement Ltd, trading as Goods on Country, applies and receives. Ruled 5 September. A Curious Tractor, the company the first beds were made through, is disclosed as a related entity; it does the research and development.

How fast can 400 beds move?

As fast as each community organisation agrees its rules. The Goods on Country facility in Queensland makes the first 400 on the flat-pack route, tab sheets pressed at the plant, legs bought in, kits dispatched flat and assembled in community, which is how the forty Maningrida beds were made. We would not move a bed before the rules are agreed.

How is a grant catalytic if it does not match anything?

The first money starts a trade that keeps going without it. The first 400 beds go to 4 community organisations, they sell them, the buyer pays them, and the money stays there to pay for the next thing. QBE’s money starts the two facilities that move the making closer. We never say a grant matches, doubles or guarantees anything.

How do you measure impact?

Two ways, kept separate. Numbers prove scale: our register counts every bed, washing machine, community and kilo of plastic, and every figure we publish carries a label. Voices prove meaning: Empathy Ledger holds consented interviews with people where the beds went. What we will measure is enterprise, paid work, recycling, and health and daily life: sales and repeat buyers, paid hours and wages, verified plastic used, beds in use and checked at six and twelve months. We do not claim health outcomes.

What about the washing machines?

Pakkimjalki Kari, named in Warumungu by Elder Dianne Stokes. A one-button machine on a Speed Queen base, at prototype stage and in several communities. It is the next thing after the beds, where a community chooses it. It is not for sale yet; there is a register-interest form.

Who runs the line at a site, and who pays them?

Open, and it is the biggest single dial in our model. A site has a floor cost the day anyone works there, and the wage of whoever runs the line is the part no bed sale covers on its own. An operator and a place, named, with someone paying them, is agreed in the rules before a facility is established.

Why 100 beds per community organisation?

Open. We do not yet have an answer we would say out loud.

Does any of the money come back to the funder?

No. The funder acts once, and after that the money goes round inside the community. Nobody is buying shares: Goods on Country is a company limited by guarantee and has none. If a facility is ever financed with a loan, it is repaid from what Goods on Country is paid for making, never out of a community organisation’s sales money.

What happens if the cost to make comes in over A$262?

We publish it anyway and redo the maths in the open. The first fifty beds get counted properly: kilos of plastic and what it cost, press time and power, CNC hours, operator hours kept separate from founder time, scrap, freight, what breaks. If it comes in under, the model is right. If it comes in over, the model changes and every page changes with it.

Is this a health program?

No. Scabies and rheumatic heart disease are the reason the hardware matters. The beds are washable and off the ground because of them. That is where our claim stops. We count beds in use, paid hours, plastic and sales, and we do not claim health outcomes.

Who decides who gets a bed?

The community organisation, under rules it agrees before any bed moves: who gets beds, who sells, who is paid, where the money goes. Oonchiumpa did exactly this in Mparntwe. They picked the young people, chose which households got beds and who drove them out to the homelands.

What does Goods on Country get out of it?

What it is paid for making the first stock, and the money that runs the organisation, which we raise separately and say which is which. Sales money never funds it: the buyer pays the community organisation, not Goods on Country.

What have you actually delivered?

540 beds across 11 communities in two years, and 23 washing machines in community. Forty beds pressed at the Goods on Country facility in Queensland and assembled at Gamardi by young people with Homeland School Company. Two days of building with Oonchiumpa in Mparntwe. Four buyers who have paid for 320 beds on invoice. Every bed is a row in our live register.

What are the biggest open questions right now?

Which communities are ready for the two facilities, and on what terms. The measured cost of a locally made bed, which the first fifty will give us. Who runs the line at the first site and who pays them. And the rules with each community organisation, agreed before any bed moves.

Words 2026-09-14. Figures from the register and canon. The drawings on this page are the deck's drawings, rendered from the same files.