When I went to Bamaga there was a field that I was told used to grow enough vegetables to supply the local area as well as provide the Torres Strait islands with some fresh produce. It had a huge circular irrigation system like turf and dairy farmers use but it had all been abandoned and fresh produce was being brought in at great expense. While it wouldn't be too hard to bring in people to run a profitable business it seems impossible to achieve this locally.

All of the strategies that have been tried in the past, from the paternalistic approaches of the missionaries and station owners to the bureaucratically driven CDEP programs, have produced minimal lasting effects for the people in remote Australia. Perhaps we need to look at other places and programs in the world that have similar circumstances and have been successful. The ideas behind the micro credit movement seem to be able to initiate businesses within communities while minimizing some of the impediments that can result from traditional organisational structures. Maybe we can learn from this and other successful approaches to this situation.

Please, BigAl, read a book on punctuation and grammar; it is ‘try TO read a book’, not ‘try AND read a book’.

I spend several hours a day reading. Reading, in fact, is my main interest.

I note that you don’t have any opinions of your own, preferring to snipe at other people with opinions, like a spoilt, nasty child. You will be very happy with CJ Morgan and his gang – nothing to say, just rubbish others.

In the case of Bamaga, the top end of Cape Yorke has all sorts of agriculture restrictions imposed by quarantine regulations to protect our cattle industry from diseases and possibly vegetable growing is similarly restricted so that pests can't come into Australia from Papua New Guinea. Call the Emergency Disease Watch Hotline on 1800 675 888 if you don't believe me.

Aboriginal communities have been left impoverished by Intervention policy that removed aboriginal ownership of assets worth more than $400,000. The intervention is being micromanaged from Canberra which leaves contractors unsafe in vulnerable situations, there is at least one workers comp case bought be a contractor bashed while at work when the Canberra supervisor failed to check up on their where abouts in a timely manner. More insiduously the intervention has robbed aborigines of any vestige of control or autonomy over their lives.
It takes time to rebuild esteem and self management skills

I can't believe the learnt stupidity of regarding this as a political issue.

In this problem, the basic unit of ethics, decision-making and action is the individual, not 'the community'.

It's no wonder they're waiting for vegetables if they're waiting for the community to provide it.

It's quite simple. Someone has to decide to accumulate the capital, do the work, undertake the risk, and await the result.

They won't do it if they think it won't be worth it. It won't be worth it if the government is already subsidising them risk-free to live in permanent dependence.

And it won't be worth it if traditional values mean everyone else in the community has an equal claim on any gain made by the person who undertakes the savings, work and risk.

The only reason these so-called 'communities' exist out there is because they are rotten boroughs of the welfare state. Their traditional economy is no more. And they are not a part of the modern economy. They are subsidised to live in dependence and poverty paid for with money forcibly taken from someone else, who must actually engage in worthwhile productive activities that people would willingly pay for, an idea that seems completely lost on the author. She is completely mystified when faced with the need to explain how food actually gets to our tables. She thinks everything comes from government committees taking it from someone else.

The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the author's parasitic political ideology is sickening.

There are so many native bush tucker plants that can be grown in any community, along with all sorts of conventional crops, if they’ve got the water supply and a basic level of management skills.

The core of the issue is motivation. The people need to see that it will help their future.

The Landline story brought to our attention by Pelican outlines just the sort of thing that should be happening; working with Aboriginal communities, which would provide jobs and improve their health and quality of life.
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Wing Ah Ling, you’ve popped up again. So you’ve deserted the ‘Population pressures’ thread. After imploring everyone to answer your questions, you’d prefer to abandon the discussion that you’ve prompted rather than answer my questions! ( :>/

Whilst we live in hope, shall probably die in despair, waiting for Jenny Macklin and the committee to look into why all those once largely self sufficient communities so dramatically reduced their self sufficiency.

Or shall unacceptable truths be recognized ?

The critical issues concerning food supply, quality and cost, how these impact on the health and economic circumstances of communities are the same for all communities.

When Parliament, Ministers, committees look only at "Indigenous Communities" they start NOT prepared to be open and honest, preferring to continue their practice racist filtering of reality.

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