What's so shocking about this? This performance by the labour government is completely in line with the competency they have shown so far with regard to BER, Roof insulation, etc. Need I go on?

Dkit

FAHCSIA seems to have a major leadership problem. Nonsense like the Yuendumu flyer is endemic in their operation. Obscure acronyms breed like rabbits, and even more obscure in-house jargon passes for thought and analysis. FAHCSIA doesn't seem to have a competent communications manager, let alone an intelligent grasp of the kind of research needed to measure the success or otherwise of their programs. They display no communication skills and little common sense.

As for the Yuendumu LIP meeting, only three local Aboriginal people turned up; one of these is the Indigenous Engagement Officer (off-sider to the resident FAHCSIA Government Business Manager) in the community, and another is married to him. The IEO made the pertinent point that FAHCSIA and other government & NGO agencies are trying to do too much consultation and planning about too many things all at the same time, and the tiny communities don't have the resources, time or motivation to respond to all this busywork.

Stay warm
Dan

Could you call it a catastrophe or just normal madness . Are ALP's subjected to Health Checks , are they all alcoholics or just mentally impaired .
This is very sad for the Aboriginals who were conned into believing a fair go was at last at hand . As for the Minister she will get to spend more on Make Overs than the poor Aboriginals will get .

Utilising the tools of bureaucracy has not does not and never will work when dealing with remote Aboriginal Communities without consultation and empowerment with the Communities as entities.
It is not only an exercise in housing people, It is a process of emergence into the 21st Century with introduction to skills, formal education, employment,responsibility and obligation without offending Clan protocols.

The consultation goes much further than a fly in - fly out whistle stop tour by a minister. It requires a permanent executive officer, employed by Government who liases with the local Committee and satisfies acquittal of project funds.

Such an Executive Officer must possess special communication skills and stamina to work in such an environment without being burnt out after 6 months with Stress.

Far more than 7 have been burnt down by residents in WA Regional centres. This makes a minus figure. Another lot of broken promises from the spin merchants.

Jack Wareford is entirely correct. The Rudd/Macklin record in Indigenous affairs is a disaster. Basic policy settings, inherited from Howard and Brough and followed with slavish enthusiasm by Macklin, are wrong, will not work, and simply waste time and money. Macklin is simply not up to the job, and seems to have been captured by her advisors. Assimilation is the underlying game, and forcing people out of the bush into large dysfunctional settlements, naively called 'growth centres', and to the fringes of urban areas is the real objective. Policy is ideological, callous and unjust. Implementation is amazingly bureacratic, culturally inadept and messy.
No houses are to be built on over 500 communities in the NT ever under current Commonwealth/COAG policy. So much for closing the gap.