Experience Anu

For the Northern Territory, 2016 is the year of two big anniversaries: the 50th anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off and the 40th anniversary of the Commonwealth Parliament's passing the Northern Territory Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Next year will also mark the 10th anniversary of the Commonwealth's Northern Territory Emergency Response - the Intervention. What benefits have government policies delivered to Indigenous peoples over those decades? How would Nugget Coombs rate the quality of advice and programs that have emanated from government bureaucracies, NGOs and powerful individuals, as they have applied to Indigenous affairs? The passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act remains its acme. Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory have been so distracted gaining, then defending, their rights that they simply have not secured their future. Developing the North is a hollow mantra without real inclusion of Indigenous peoples: the need for them to be consulted is ignored and self-management continu