Amicus,
I will choose to believe that you have simply assumed far too much by your response. Yes the intervention was continued by the labor gov and continues to be useless. I haven't noted any reports indicating the success of the intervention. It has most likely gone under the radar because labor have had so many other disasters that it has been forgotten.
It would appear that everyone tries something but no one has success, so i revert back to what i said in my first post on this subject.

Thanks, Individual, for your response to my question 3. Is it fair to deduce from this that you would say yes to question 4?

Joe, you ask “Another 'representative body' ? Was the last one a major driver of innovation and opportunity and a beacon of light and prosperity, or was it a crock, memorable for its innovative combination of incompetence and corruption?” Fair question.

Perhaps it was neither and perhaps it was both. At the outset it certainly seemed a beacon of hope. At the end it seemed a shambles. But was it given a fair go after 1996 when the parties opposed to Aboriginal self-determination took government? That is a matter of divided opinion. Some, like DR H C Coombs, claim ATSIC was never given a fair go, not even by the Hawke-Keating government that put it in place at such great cost.

Some years ago a native American elder visited Australia and was interviewed on (I think) ABC’s Life Matters. She claimed that it took 80 years for her tribal representative body to gain the confidence and competence to manage its affairs effectively.

So the question can be asked whether, given Australia’s history, was it fair to abandon this tentative attempt at self-determination so soon? Or should genuine consultations have been undertaken towards getting ATSIC right? Currently, does the newly-appointed Council of Indigenous Whatever have the authority and responsibility needed for it to achieve Aboriginal aspirations?

From the contact I have had with remote communities as well as urban Aborigines, I think these are key questions.

Nairbe, is this in accord with your first post?

Thanks for your question, Alan,

How do issues get articulated, and promoted ? People feel a need, perhaps a dire need, and they come together to find ways to resolve those needs, they may form groups, associations, organisations, to promote solutions to those issues. Pretty quickly, they would find other groups with similar concerns, and so they would co-ordinate their activities to pressure relevant bodies, perhaps governments, to resolve inequities or right wrongs.

That's what I thought might happen back in the early seventies, when representative bodies were proposed for Indigenous people - that local bodies, and then regional bodies, would be organised and set up first, then state bodies and a federal body, by whatever name, it diddn't matter. Issues and mobilisation would come from the people themselves, so I thought. The point was that issues and concerns had to come from the grassroots UP, not from some government-appointed, lap-dog body DOWN. Still, dependence on government initiative ruled, so that's what happened, and now that's all water under the bridge. The NACC, the NAC, ATSIC - almost forty years of irrelevance.

Do we do it all over again ? Do we set up yet another bunch of grasping careerists, with 10 % local support, and give them a huge budget and little responsibility ? Perhaps, even put on some sham elections and call it representative ?

Sorry, Alan, life's too short.

Joe

Is it fair to deduce from this that you would say yes to question 4?
Alan Austin,
Australians still haven't grasped that whatever program or policy they introduce re indigenous matters will prove no better than what has already been tried. The crux of this dilemma is that people need to leave other people to make decisions for themselves. If they stuff up then so be it. If they succeed then great ! But we must refrain from this perpetual we know better attitude by academia & bureaucracy. Of course people have great ideas which work absolutely fine, for them ! They might not appeal to people who do not wish to live a similar life style. How can we ever achieve a harmonious society when one group keeps dictating to the other. At the same time we can't continue to pander to those who can't make up their mind & constantly bite the hand that feeds them. I am going through a process at work for the sixth time in 25 years where new management has done full circle to all the policies which have failed so miserably in the past, yet they're implementing them again & again. I'm talking about fairly educated people in policy making who simply can not see that they're destroying one indigenous community after another by their arrogant come ignorant attitude of "we know better" after having been in a community for 3 months with the prospect of lasting maybe 15 months. City folk will never comprehend country mentality & vice versa. Let city people make decisions for city people & country people for country people. That way we might have a small chance of getting somewhere instead of perpetuating misery.

So, Individual, is that a yes or a no to question 4? I am genuinely interested in this, not just being provocative.

And I completely agree with your observations about the disconnect between city and country. Totally. (In case it is relevant, I am a boy from country Victoria who lived in Melbourne for a while, but with a light aircraft licence has visited about 90 Aboriginal communities fairly regularly since 1975.)

Joe, I almost wept when I read your post: "Do we do it all over again? Do we set up yet another bunch of grasping careerists, with 10% local support, and give them a huge budget and little responsibility? Perhaps, even put on some sham elections and call it representative? Sorry, Alan, life's too short."

Because history is absolutely your side, Joe, as Individual affirms. But aren't there other possibilities? Surely it is possible with the benefit of the experience of ATSIC circa 1996 to replace the current dysfunctional unrepresentative administration (which has 1% support) with a revamped elected body. But this time give it a fair go. Maybe not the 80 years of the native Americans, but at least 40.

Researchers who have lived their entire adult lives with Aboriginal people, such as Richard Trudgeon, say this is the only hope.