Nice article Stephen. You summed things up very well.

One quibble: I thought you could have adapted Alexander Chalmers' formula for happiness: “The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”

With your emphasis on the family, I would have said: "something to do, people to love, and something to hope for."

I hope that's what 2009 brings you and yours.

Thanks you Mr Hagan for this wonderful piece. Your analysis of the problems of social policy delivery is absolutley spot on. I have learned over time, that teaching Indigenous Issues/Studies is absolutley NOT enough to overcome the institutionalised racism so well described. I have long argued that, in social work education, we need to embed Indigenous perspectives in our teaching so that we can remove this patronising racist approach in our work. After all it has been we who have provided the advice and policy direction. But more than that, we whitefellas need to understand that with respect to understanding Indigenous perspectives, we are but children and have much to learn. I am beginning to understand the essential part that family, land and lore have in my Murri friends' lives and the strong and powerful role that women have, and seek to learn more how properly acknowledge and respect this deep knowledge in my own family and my professional practice. Thanks heaps for the encouragement to continue which your article provides.

Dear Mr. Hagan,
While Mr. Rudd was talking the talk of politicians I was hearing the silence of those that count and it was an unstoppable laugh.

Stephen Hagan sees clearly that government interventions intended to 'address the social dysfunction afflicting these discrete Indigenous communities in remote and rural parts of the Northern Territory' have been a failure at the same time as they line the pockets of comfortable vested interests. But then he calls for more interventions, believing that the fundamental idea is right, it just needs a bit more tweaking by a few more vested interests.

It doesn't seem to occur to him that these interventions don't work in practice because they are wrong in principle. They can't work, not with all the tweaking in the world, because they start from a false premise. According to the welfarist rationale, government knows what's better for people, than people. This assumes that Aborigines are like dependent children, government is like a demi-god.

Stephen do what extent do you think that these dysfunctional communities are themselves an artefact of the welfare state? Subsidised to exist in a state of dependence and uselessness, neither integrated into the economy of mainstream society, nor able to exist on the basis of traditional economy and society. Their dependence, poverty and disadvantage appear as assets in the balance sheet of the parasite classes, a magic pudding of never-ending junkets at others' expense.

History is indeed written by the conquerors, but you forget that government is the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion. Law and policy, and everything that people hope to achieve through them, are based on force and the threat of force. The teaching of compulsory history cannot but be a matter of interpretation. To think that this further act of colonisation of the values and meanings of the people subject to it, either indigenous or not, will fix the problem, is to identify the problem, but persist in the error that is causing the problem while just coincidentally pleading for your own vested interest. Surprise surprise.

Australia's race-based laws and policies are bad in principle and bad in practice and should be abolished.

i dont like the word indiginous[its a buzz word] indiginous means;native sans culture[thus a plant can be said to be indiginous[or legally speaking an ab-origonal[sans culture can 'claim' indigenous standing

[thus be unable to claim an ongoing link to the land [the reason i suspect the word gained popular usage]during the howard black years

it is painfull to hear people with culture claim they are indiginouse[when the dont know what they are saying,in using it'legally speaking]

i thought the best[worst] talking point[that 33 out of every 100 aborigonal woman only will achieve retirment age[and 22 out of every 100 men ] or that one in 5 dies before reaching the age of 5 years old

[or that nt is building ever more prisons[or the three stikes your outin wa [or rather in [jail] for life[or even talk of joseph banks bringing small pox to the origonal people]

in short i would have expected more info [less fluff in making a reflection on the state of the first australians ,under colinisation to hrh under the powers of maritime law

[you do know she is far from a figure head[that the gg is the true head of state to this colony called van-die-mens land[of the peoples land[by the dutch discoverors]

but i guess the media cant talk about the reality of it [right]
even when i put the info in the tent embassy museum three times [two got burned down[one govt removed with a large invasion force on aborigonal embassy grounds]

it is great that rudd appologuised but talk is cheap
[and the true facts barely rate any mention]

lets see how he goes on invasion[australia] day,

wonder if he will attend the tent embassy day of mourning
[no i guess he wont]

“And guess what? The world did not implode, and the polls did not drop dramatically as predicted.”

And, also guess what, nothing has changed. Most people don’t care about aborigines and saying sorry to them; aborigines are still dysfunctional whingers and always will be, and the “stolen generation” is still a load of rot.

Nothing has changed for aborigines since white settlement, and nothing will change in the future unless they get used to the idea that they are just like other Australians and start making their own way in the world. Moaning and groaning; living on handouts in unsustainable outback camps; blaming everyone else for their problems, and listening to plastic politicians saying ‘sorry’ for nothing is no way to make it