Too often children are rendered as mere commodities or the end result of a chance and fumbling encounter...wanted to a degree but not really the focus of many parents lives.. it has been that way for a while.

Parents have never parented in the classic neoconservative sense of the Leave to Beaver, whitepicket fence myth - isolated totally self sufficient families are a thing of the past if they were ever a thing at all.

Children have been trusted to communities, extended families defacto foster parents since the first little bugger was born.

Parents have sexualised their children for a variety of vicarious reasons or see them as a burden .. I dont suggest this is the case universally in the 21st century - but enough bad things happen to suggest children are some what of disposable product or a vehicle for unrealised parental aspirations or worse still objects of lust and exploitation.

Where once kids were lost to dyptheria, small box, polio , snake bite or worse - we now lose them to drugs sexual predators or an insurmountable sense of anomie' -

and these days we dont have that many so those we do have need to pretty mickey mouse or they tend ot get overlooked - some times the runt of the litter represents the entire litter and a great dissapointment to mum and dad - we are an intrinsicaly selfish bunch.

If I were a kid and had a choice I suspect I would choose not to be born until us adults get our act together.

Administration and a breakdown in cultural provisional purpose at ground levels. Fly-in's are not building on natural community support mechanisms.

Administrations are lacking in funding development strategies at ground level. Exclusive work practices dominate focus rather than building on community productivity base.

Local elites just as those in development case studies oversea's lack policy directives and hinder greater process. Regional staff reproduce the senario. It is a Dead-End Culture within administrative practices. And, so it continues!

Dysfunctional families/communities (in any diverse culture) rarely have the resources to humanly make the best choices when there is a lack of resource education on issues regarding their daily civic wellbebeing. ie: crime prevention projects and programs associated with integrated health education engaging the "whole" community, are lacking everywhere in Cape York. INCLUSIVE GLUE networking at ground levels.

Community education and development vs Social Disorganisation. The plan must be with local multi-sector civic partnership, provisions and long-term.

The 1978 Declaration of the Child stated that to look after CHILDREN, you need to take SPECIAL CARE of MOTHERS.

"TURN THE LENS BACK ON TO COMMUNITY" (Maria Altmann- "One Step at a Time": Development Study in Community Development through Crime Prevention.Cooktown.2004)

It is not Rocket Science!

I am sure with a perspective on COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT and strategies ("whole approach") LOCAL GOVERNMENT PLANNING (through civic community services) support platform, Australia could match the best value for funding economic community structures, beside the best comparitive studies in other countries. (Look at village primary health data)

Given my own experience at GROUND LEVELS, I find it is the administive functions that miss the beat. I find them short-term and often distruptive by there design.

Organisational Culture is everything if the target of benefits is aimed at building real capacity at ALL ground levels. (Alm Ata)

I find the communities burdened by a lack of resources. This includes HUMAN RESOURCES. They do not seem able to build or support a constructive long-term community support network. Mechanisims and practices are Ad Hoc. The blame becomes deeply multi-directed, each capped with complex denial.

www.//:www.miacat.com

Muriel Bamblett,

As you rightly point out, the existing model of foster care is a false dichotomy. I very much like the idea of the third way - supporting foster families to raise children in collaboration with the birth family - not shunting the birth family out of the picture. That gives both the foster family and the birth family an opportunity to do their best for the child and maintains the connections of kin.

And I like your proposition that this model could work with all families in need not just Indigenous families.

At the macro level, you're right to be suspicious of the motives of Howard and Brough for
introducing changes to the land permit system and land tenure and the appointment of administrators to manage Aboriginal communities. These were never part of the Little Children Are Sacred report and they have no relevance to child protection.

I look forward to significant changes to the intervention strategy under the new Government especially with regard to working with Indigenous communities, not just on the immediate tragic issue of child abuse but on the underlying issues of providing access to good quality education (including early childhood) housing, health, employment, policing, transport and communication services.

It really is time for a new deal.

First I admit my ignorance and confess to no direct experience or knowledge of these communities. So I am writing as an intelligent and caring (I hope) layperson.

I think the author of the article advocates a very important thing. She asserts that the existence of these remote communities ought not be discussed merely behind closed doors but should be open to debate.

I would like to hear more. Why should we expect that a remote community have full educational, health, transport, and other "essential" infrastructures? Many small country towns have closed down over the last century of change. Not enough kids to justify a viable school. No doctor available for such a small community. No viable economy to provide jobs. Bank withdraws its branch. Trains no longer stop at the station. People move somewhere else. We see no big need to prop up these settlements. So why do we want to advocate full services in indigenous remote communities? Notice I am not saying that we ought allow them to fade. But I would like to hear some rational argument about why they are good things.

May I ask as a layperson - what happened to RESPECT within our society. RESPECT for elders, RESPECT for children. It doesn't matter if you are white, coloured or brindle, or what religion you aspire to? A CHILD is a CHILD who should be loved, nurtured and cared for. A child (any child) didn't ask to be born. A child (any child) should not be exposed to "free game" from predators. Our children are our nation's future.

Fencepost

I take it you are a serious person with a genuine question: "Why should we expect that a remote community have full educational, health, transport, and other "essential" infrastructures?"

There seem to be two aspects to the question you ask.

First there are the retention issues. Why stay? Indigenous people have spiritual attachments to place which white people find hard to understand because, as you say, when the going gets too tough, we walk away from the land, from the place we find inhospitable.

Indigenous people say: "It is my father's land, my grandfather's land, my grandmother's land. I am related to it, it give me my identity. If I don't fight for it, then I will be moved out of it and [it] will be the loss of my identity" (A plaintiff in the 'Mabo' Case, 1990).

Land has special importance to Indigenous people. As custodians they have a duty to care for the land of their ancestors. Each country has its sacred origins and sacred places, its sources of life and its sites of death. For Indigenous Australians, the earth is the ultimate origin of the life of country.

Many white people dismiss this as 'primitive'. But value judgments are cheap.

Second, there are the opportunity issues. What are their options? Where would these people go? How would they be relocated? How could they form new attachments to the land? How would they earn a living in a hostile new environment? Who would lend them a helping hand?