"...the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians..."

I would be curious to see the gap between Indigenous Australians integrated into the rest of society, and those living in isolated communities. It may be the unfortunate situation that Aboriginals are genetically more vulnerable to many 'white man' diseases that makes up a significant proportion of this gap.

"...policing, primary health care, education, housing and real employment opportunities."

Policing - I believe there is/was a significant push to have the locals police themselves with their own cultural laws.

Health - Last time i checked we were facing a chronic shortage of health care professionals across the country. Locating valuable resources to remote communities is an inefficient solution that will only aggravate the situation elsewhere.

Housing - Despite being employed, many non-indigenous Australian families are struggling to afford housing, sharing with extended family. When is the government going to start building these people their own homes?

Education - This is a key area of opportunity to change not only a individual's opportunities, but a community's attitude.

Real Employment Opportunities - This where we need to face the reality that there is no chance of "Real Employment Opportunities" in these remote communities. The only chance of significant employment would be
a socialist style government sponsored centre with no real productive purpose. Something that will not achieve many of the goals of "Real Employment".

Providing even an exceptional level of social services to these communities is nothing but a quick-fix as you put it. The only real, long term solution is relocation of these people to an area where they can integrate with the rest of society. I doubt any of the "trailblazers" you talk of live lives so geographically disconnected from the rest of society.

Of course relocating is something we cannot force on anyone. It's their choice, and as such the consequences should be their responsibility.

Translation: throw billions more public dollars at the problem, leave Aborigines and welfare groups alone to spend it as they see fit, and they'll fix things. Just like they've been doing so successfully for the past 30 years.

When is the welfare lobby going to wake up to the fact that their thoroughly discredited "solutions" are part of the problem!

Desipis

As you say, it would be interesting to see more analysis of differences in health status between Indigenous people who are integrated into the rest of society, and those living in isolated communities.

Indications are that Aboriginal people living in small country towns with endemic alcohol and drug abuse may have the worst health profiles. The large Indigenous populations in the major cities may produce a different profile, as many of these people work and study, and can look forward to some kind of rewarding future, so their health profiles may be a bit better despite the high rates of substance misuse and chronic diseases which exist even amongst this group.

The problem with the perennial "push to have the locals police themselves with their own cultural laws" is that the locals are often themselves not well, have close relatives who are troublemakers, and are not usually well equipped to deal with often-violent drunks, illegal dealing in grog and dope, or enforcement of necessary laws about weapons, vehicles etc. Programs involving locals and elders invariably work much better if there are sensible fully-empowered police present in the community to provide a safe context, and ready to back them up when they need it.

On Health: the government has a commitment to supply a basic level of health services to all Australians, but is not willing to do the hard yards and use its powers (and control of the money) to induce more doctors to move out of their comfort zones in the cities and spend some time in the outback. Consequently the existing staff in remote clinics are over-worked and over-stressed, and burn out quickly.

Re Employment: there are chances of "Real Employment Opportunities" in these remote communities (eg in building and maintenance, service provision, roadworks, environmental care, tourism, mining, recreation).

As you say, to get mass participation by local Aboriginal people in these jobs would require significant government subsidy, but it would be productive in the true sense if organised properly, and far less expensive for the government than dealing with the consequences of the present disastrous mess.

I must of missed it....what is "the root causes of this crisis"?

The root cause is poverty, ignorance, and the failure to address them with other than platitudes and programs that prop up the project managers

Perhaps you misunderstand the word 'root'.

Poverty is not a root cause, but merely another symptom.