You could send some commentators out to study a forest and when you come back twelve months later there they would be, still cocking a leg on the nearest shrub and totally oblivious to the forest beyond.

Dear Melinda, the forest is child neglect. Distractions - such as giving men and porn a jolly good feminist thrashing - only serve to take attention away from the main problem, militating against there ever being a holistic solution.

So what about having some concern for the thousands of children who suffer daily

However it is timely to point out that the ACT, the home of Australia's bureaucratic creme de la creme and stamping ground of federal pollies, allows the X rated pornography that is banned in all States. The NT has the pornography regulations similar to the the ACT, however the ACT would probably sell more of this awful stuff in a month than would be sold in the NT in a year. Now any minute I will be expecting reports of widespread child sexual abuse in the ACT.

To mix metaphors, what about putting the horse back in front of the cart and attacking the causes of child neglect?

Cornflower. The incidence of child abuse in the ACT and any connection to X rated porn would take some time to compile.

To me, its as plain as the pre 9/11 twin towers. Feeding people porn, and the continual objectification of men and women (and increasingly young ones if the porn industry has it's way) cannot ever contribute to the holistic solution you speak of.

Simply taking porn (or alchohol) away from Aboriginal communities will not solve the inner problem which leads to excessive consumption and consequent behavour, but it will send a message that someone out there does care about the direction they are going, and in the absence of any other solution, prohibition seems like the best of any short term solution, to give breathing space for them to gain some footup to a better ability to deal with things.

Pornography, on top of social and spiritual debilitation, cultural depression and decay, is not something I would prescribe as medicine for a holistic healing of a people.

When in a weakened state, people are more vulnerable to anything which can seem like a short term quick thrill.

That we see the obvious impact of porn on indigenous communities but not so clearly in our own, in no way diminishes it's impact on us.
Perhaps you lead a sheltered life, but there are things going on among us the like of which I shudder to mention.

There are many among our own community who are not far from the sad state of the indigenous as described in this article, but because they are isolated, we don't see it as clearly.

Oh thank God, the socialist here finally discovered the real reason behind the Indigenous social problems. Porn. Well, I guess when your life is so completely managed, spending your monthly stipend on porn is one method of self-actualising. They say the government has no business in the bedroom but, obviously have no problem following an Aboriginal woman or man into the bathroom. I'm sure the socialist are there just for the articles.

Upon my brief visit to the Kimberleys I was told that we couldn't take photos because pedophiles had been through the communities photographing pubescent girls bathing. The communities didn't want dirty old [white] men photographing the budding breasts of their young girls.

Now whether a drunken man in a township can get the generator going to fire up the computer or even focus on a computer screen - well I don't know.

There has been far too much mud flinging in this case. We now know why Mal Brough claimed that aboriginal trust money was being misappropriated. Mal Brough signed the cheque for NT Mining Royalty money to pay for the Dreamtime festival in his QUEENSLAND electorate.

If you want kiddies to go to school, feed them at school. If you want them to be bathed, clothed and receive medical attention then do it at school. You train dogs using food rewards and quite frankly you can still train me using food rewards so why wouldn't it work on neglected kids.

If you want kiddies to learn to read give them readers they can understand. How well is " the cat sat on the mat" or "the mug was on the rug" going to be received in a community with lino, concrete or dirt floors. Are there feral cats in NT, are there mats or rugs

While in the Kimberley's I was also told that aboriginal families have far more violent relationships than most white families and hunt for someone to blame and punish when anything goes wrong. That may well have been the common white family dynamic 50 or 100 years ago too.

Like most people over 40, I look at the skimpy clothes young women wear and hear public discussion of "brazilian" waxing and think that sex is objectified and that public dress is indecent and almost pornographic.

I am a bit disturbed by Melinda Tankard Reist jumping on this bandwagon. Her views on pornography are well known and she is entitled to hold them.

But she was on the Staff of Sen Harradine for 12 years, has close associations with the religious right and uses the word "feminist" to cloak her more radical views.

I fear she is using the tragedy of child sexual abuse to push her own agenda, not to help in any meaningful way.

It is my understanding that countries like Denmark, Norway have much more liberal pornography laws than Australia, we have yet to hear that in those countries that pornography is linked to violence.

What has happened to bring the aboriginal people to this level?

Firstly we had the invasion of missionaries who used similar fire and brimestone preaching as to the author of this article. I think it is called fear mongering.

The second disaster was the advent of liberalism. In some cases the missions went from the rigid christian structure to having no structure at all.

I plead ignorance to traditional aboriginal lore, however I do understand that under tradtional lore certain protections were in place for individuals. The social fabric was torn apart.

The introduction of alcohol to many indigeous people was what began their downward spiral. The American indians, the Eskimo's.

The really toxic poison to many cultures around the world has been the european culture