Banjo your point is valid but if you look at cornflowers posts it is clear so are they.
Fact is Aboriginal affairs is fraud on wheels, always has been, sadly likely to be.
Macklyn is of little worth, she always has been and in my view always will be.
She clearly is stunned by the light of public opinion and blind to the fact getting the housing built is not an Aboriginal employment program.
White and blacks, trash at heart bleed cash from such things ,we MUST stop the cargo cult nature of Aboriginal affairs.
We have great leaders in this NT community, they will not be found in its self serving Parliament.
If given a chance from within the Aboriginal community ,with rules and checks, with set targets and accountability we could leave the whole thing to them.

Cornflower,
It is good to know that you think the Federal Ministers office has all the relevant information about differing aboriginal communities. Obviously some do function better than others.

However the seems little evidence that governments have put that info to good use by promoting the actions that are better. It is not just the present government, it seems to go back forever.

To me, it seems the best place to start is from example of the better managed communities and to emulate that management.

That aside, There is no excuse for the present debarcle about the mal-administration of the housing project. Incompedents and corruption has to be eliminated at all levels, starting at the top.

Kids and women are still being abused and nobody wants that to continue.

Banjo

There is a mountain of well-researched reports and the authors are available if the minister and her Departmental head want to sit down and talk about priorities and solutions. Ms Macklin could ask why a house costs $2 000 000 to build, especially when it is probably trashed in a far shorter time than it took to build it.

Has anyone mentioned secondhand shipping containers as a viable option yet? $1500 to 2500 per + trucking and a welder. Ready now, no delay and no supply, trucking, foundation or assembly problems. No need for specialist expertise. Coolness or warmth is subject to placement of the 'blocks'.

http://earthsci.org/education/fieldsk/container/container.html

The boozed relatives are welcome to try their fists on the walls of those and no, they don't burn so easily.

In closing, a dysfunctional system resists change because most of the participants accrue benefit from it remaining so. Governments are easily embarrassed and elections come all too frequently. That is why I suggested taking as much as possible out of the political arena.

Have not had a chance to return to this thread until now. I think Cornflower has summarised the situation very well.

Banjo

You ask white-fellows questions.

You want a neat tidy list of successful communities:

According to whom?

White-fellows? White communities never ever have drunkenness, DV, porn?

Black-fellows? Rarely get a say in how they want their communities - just told to suck it up and live like white-fellows.

Like white communities, some are more successful than others - the big difference is size and location. Failed white communities don't stand out like they do in the isolation of the far north. Failed white families are more or less blended among the more successful.

Solutions. I take Cornflowers point about the current government lead system failing, but do not agree that a completely privatised system would work either. When the basis for service is profit what happens to the priorities of the people stuck in the middle, the indigenous communities?

But some people in the current system must be skimming off a fortune, how to stop the rort? Let the women elders manage the money - that would be a good start.

Fractelle,
The only 'white fella' solution I am looking for, at this time, is government responsibility to ensure that monies promised and allocated go to the purpose it was intended. There is a scandal in relation to this in the NT and it is the aboriginals that are suffering for it. Particularly the women and kids.

It seems much of the funds have been used for other purposes by the NT government. This is disgracefull.

You said. "Banjo

You ask white-fellows questions.

You want a neat tidy list of successful communities:

According to whom?

White-fellows? White communities never ever have drunkenness, DV, porn?

Black-fellows? Rarely get a say in how they want their communities - just told to suck it up and live like white-fellows.

Like white communities, some are more successful than others - the big difference is size and location. Failed white communities don't stand out like they do in the isolation of the far north. Failed white families are more or less blended among the more successful".

It was you and Cornflower that were talking about 'well managed' communities, I was simply asking you to name some. It is you that should define the standard you were referring to. You say that aboriginals 'rarely' get a say in how they want their communities. That is utter rubbish, there are dozens of committees, land councils and so on all over the place that have a big say in what takes place. not to mentioned the failed ATSIC.

Over the years they have failed to come up with solutions, in fact the situation was worsening which resulted in the NT Intervention.

I do not care who comes up with the solutions, but the kids have to be protected, no matter what.

For what it is worth, my long term idea is to make the kids get an Aussie education and things may improve. Things that are traditional can be taught outside of school hours by the parents. The reality is that they have to live in a modern world.

Banjo, apologies... nothing relevant.

Have you seen the movie "Moolaade"?

You gotta see it.