Senator IAN MACDONALD—What is your concern about the Tiwi Islands, from the Tiwi Islanders’ point of view? Dr Ajani—I think they have a product which is not well placed in the play that is going to unfold over the next few years as our hardwood plantation resource comes onto the market.
It is not right that these horrible things were done when the Church was supposed to be protecting children. I think it should be investigated, we shouldn’t just let it go. There was, and still is, a real fear of the church at times.
Every Secret Thing is one of the best books written about life in the Northern Territory since Xavier Herbert's Capricornia - that's a pretty big call but I reckon this book is just as funny, brave and deadly serious as that grumpy old curmudgeon's masterpiece.
The first five notes of the Pied Butchebird's call reminded me very much of "La Cucaracha"...
What Rothwell is of course talking about here is localised Aboriginal self-determination, an aspiration that he has frequently condemned to the dustbin of Australian political history: “For some time it has been clear Aboriginal self-determination has had its day.”
"The roadside memorial is particularly important because it indicates to us that there is a new way looking at grief and mourning." Jennifer Clark, UNE.
There is the very real possibility that Alison Anderson could follow Scrymgour's lead and walk - not to the cross-benches - but across the Assembly floor to the CLP - gifting government to the CLP's Terry Mills.
Henderson's failures are all his own doing, led by a poor set of polices that attack his electoral heartland and a supine surrender to the Federal government's directions -- but he hasn't been helped by the loose cannons rolling around the deck of what passes for the sinking ship of state in the NT.
Mel James (ABC Stateline): Alison Anderson, this sounds very much like the policy that Mal Brough was proposing. It's exactly the same isn't it? Alison Anderson, Indigenous Affairs Minister NT Government: Oh look, this has been a policy that's been delivered and, um, developed by the Henderson Labor government. It's got nothing to do with Mal Brough whatsoever.
Under the Senate's spotlight are the arrangements between the Tiwi Land Council and Great Southern, the promoter of broad-acre MIS forestry schemes on the islands that have seen vast swathes of virgin tropical savanna transformed into a monocrop of the fast growing Acacia mangium.
