Remote Australia Online

This paper presents national data and two case studies investigating the links between housing market failure and the context of Australia's recent resource mining boom. It demonstrates how unprecedented international demand for mineral resources resulted in critical, local housing issues in mining communities. We conclude that without careful strategic planning and understanding of the economic and social role of housing, international market dynamics can create local housing situations that are vulnerable to market and social failures. While this paper highlights the challenges inherent in managing housing issues in Australia during a mining boom, there are likely to be lessons which can be applied in international settings. These challenges include the diversity in scale, cyclical and often unpredictable nature of booms; differences in housing policy and institutional arrangements across jurisdictions and the importance of leadership in growth management and planning.

Enduring Community Value (ECV) from mining refers to lasting benefit to groups of people and entities who have some kind of stake in mining. Our interest in this concept is focused on communities in remote regions of Australia, particularly communities with strong place-attachment. The aim of this analysis is to develop a conceptual framework for realising the ECV from mining as a foundation for further research and associated action. We developed the conceptual framework for ECV through analysis of literature and a researcher workshop. For the literature analysis, we interrogated literature at the six intersections of four concepts: mining, remote communities, sustainability, and resilience. We searched the Web of Knowledge database to identify literature at the six intersections of these four concepts. Articles identified by each search were then culled against relevance criteria. The resulting six sets of journal articles and conference papers were analysed to identify the content and implications of each publication that are relevant to the concept of ECV. Each set highlighted various issues and experiences. Key points are: Mining and resilience Mining and sustainability Mining and remote communities Resilience and remote communities Sustainability and remote communities Resilience and sustainability

This paper also describes some of the research gaps and issues relating to employment pathways for remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Future research priorities are suggested. Principles and practices required for success in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment outcomes are identified, and recent employment pathway developments are described. In the remote environment, employment success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has been elusive. Recent commitments by governments, corporations and non-government service providers appear to have resulted in a significant increase (from an extremely low base) in employment pathway options for some remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Rational: Chronic disease is a major agent in the gap in expected life span of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, which some see as the result of self-inflicted lifestyle choices. This need not be the case, however. Method: An economic optimisation model is used. This is based on choosing between a) self-investing in education, which involves short-term costs and long-term health and economic advantage; and b) short-term self-gratification, which involves short-term self-gratification and long-term health and economic disadvantages. It is shown that self-gratification can be economically rational; especially in stressful circumstances with an uncertain future outcome. Such circumstances are relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote Australia. Results: Increasing stress levels result in increasing risk of chronic disease and hormonal responses. On the basis of a number of studies including those carried out on the British public service (Whitehall Studies), less than 25% of this change is attributable to poor lifestyle choices, while more than 50% is explained by other factors, including the loss of personal control due to external factors. In addition, hormonal responses can erode individual willpower including long-term volitional-control including long-term capacity to engage in education. Policies to mitigate the impact of the psychosocial determinants of health on stress levels can change the behavioural incentives necessary to select education in preference to short-term gratification. Future directions: A possible longitudinal research methodology using a social framework based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, where the data results are analysed using structural equation modelling is proposed.

In this article we proffer the metaphor of a ‘space of betweenness’ to explain women's limited access to leadership roles in Australian peak agricultural industry and regional governance boards. In reviewing the statistics around women's leadership roles in regional Australia, and women's own stories of their activities, we argue that despite women's contribution to their local communities through their diverse roles in paid work, it seems the triple jeopardy of their sex, their location and the nature of their businesses positions them in a ‘space of betweenness’, rendering them invisible and limiting their ability to access many formal leadership roles.

Recognizing gender as a social construction, in this article we explore the complex, and in many ways contradictory, ‘doing’ of gender on regional development boards in Australia. While the number of women on these boards has risen over the past decade, the overwhelming sense of these organizations is one of homogeneity. The individuals on these ministerially appointed boards are awarded institutional privilege. Their roles provide them with status and benefits and their membership positions them as leaders within the (masculine) hegemony. This space is not, however, uniformly masculinized. With the limited resources at their disposal and little public recognition of their roles, the boards have limited agency. These poorly resourced boards are populated by women and men board members, while vested with important titles, are relatively powerless and are expected to undertake duties and display behaviour that is more consistent with a feminized role. The doing of gender can also be seen in the primacy of the economic over the social in regional development, where the economic is strongly associated with creating employment, especially in industries where men have traditionally dominated, rather than in the more feminized domains of services. This doing of gender points to the persistence of conservative gender patterns reinforcing a masculinized model of business. The contradiction here is that while they subscribe to this masculinized model, they are unable to deliver on outcomes because they do not have direct control over resources.

Fly-in fly-out: The challenges of transient populations in rural landscapes

The Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS), through Ninti One Ltd., commissioned Biosecurity Queensland to collate and analyse aerial survey data to determine trends in the abundance and distribution of feral goats and their commercial harvest over the past three decades in the rangelands of Australia. Objectives i. Collate a national rangelands dataset for feral goat abundance from available aerial survey data and calculate densities for IBRA bioregions. ii. Investigate the need to correct for visibility bias and the potential to do this based on available data. iii. Map goat densities for selected years in relation to IBRA bioregions. iv. Map change in feral goat abundance over time. v. Provide estimates of the proportion of the goat population in each survey area that is truly feral or is managed. vi. Collate available regional data on numbers of goats harvested to supplement the survey data. vii. Assess suitability and possibility of improvements to existing survey data for reporting change in feral goat densities and to existing harvest data for determining the impact of harvesting on feral goat populations.

ACRIS reports change in livestock and kangaroo densities as components of total grazing pressure in the rangelands (see Chapter 3 of Rangelands 2008 – Taking the pulse and recent updates available from the ACRIS web site). Goats (Capra hircus) are an important contributor to total grazing pressure in the southern, predominantly sheep-grazed, rangelands. Since they are unconstrained by conventional fencing, prefer rugged or shrubby terrain and have a broader diet than other stock, feral goats thrive in many rangeland ecosystems and are difficult to effectively manage. Their mobility significantly limits the ability of landholders to manage grazing pressure and groundcover. To date, ACRIS has not had the capacity to quantitatively report change in density of this herbivore. Feral goats are counted as part of the annual aerial surveys of kangaroo numbers in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland. ACRIS contracted Biosecurity Queensland to collate and analyse these data and report trends in the abundance and distribution of feral goats. This summary provides an introduction to the Biosecurity Queensland report (Distribution, abundance and harvesting of feral goats in the Australian rangelands 1984-2011 by Tony Pople and Jens Froese) which is available from the ACRIS web site.

In 2008, ACRIS documented changes in the rangelands at national and regional scales in the report Rangelands 2008-Taking the Pulse. That report was based on data for the period 1992 to 2005. Recent years have well illustrated the extreme climate variability that Australia experiences, with much of the continent changing from severe drought during parts of the last decade to some locations experiencing their wettest period on record. This document provides updated information on seasonal quality of bioregions across the rangelands, using data on annual (autumn to autumn) rainfall and modelled pasture growth. ‘Seasonal quality’ is the term ACRIS uses to rank the degree of climate variability from one year to the next. Seasonal quality broadly describes the relative value of recent rainfall on biological functioning. Relative value (quality) is judged with reference to the longer term record. ‘Biological functioning’ broadly means vegetation growth as a basic resource for both livestock (forage) and fauna (food, shelter). In summary: - Rainfall was below average to average across much of the eastern and central rangelands between 2005-06 and 2007-08 (i.e. poorer seasonal quality). - Seasonal quality then improved across the eastern rangelands, based on rainfall, but remained poor in pastoral Western Australia, particularly in 2009-10. - The rangelands have experienced very good seasonal conditions over the last two years (2010-11 and 2011-12) with annual rainfalls being amongst the highest recorded for many bioregions. - Modelled pasture growth provides an alternative indicator of seasonal quality. It indicates the potential for pasture growth based on rainfall, soil quality and regional grazing pressure by livestock, feral herbivores and kangaroos. In some areas, this potential may not be realised because of past land degradation. Modelled pasture growth generally supported the spatial and temporal patterns of seasonal quality indicated by rainfall but there were some regional differences. In particular, pasture recovery tended to lag rainfall coming out of the recent drought in the southern and eastern rangelands. Further, in several tropical northern bioregions much of the increased rainfall was less effective, indicated by smaller responses in the pasture growth index in most years.

Last November, one of us (Grant) reported to an Alice Springs audience on fire activity and emerging lessons in central Australia during the latter part of 2011. That talk was part of the 2011 Rangeland Journal Lecture Series and is available to Australian Rangeland Society members (along with those of other guest lecturers) through the Society’s web site. The fire threat has now eased, at least for the time being, and ACRIS can now report regional fire activity during 2011 in central Australia relative to other rangeland regions and to previous years. For those not familiar with ACRIS, it is the Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System. Thematic biophysical and socio-economic data and information about change in the rangelands can be found at our web site, http://www.environment.gov.au/land/rangelands/acris/index.html. Data source: Fires are monitored using satellite data. Two web sites are commonly accessed for current fire activity: the North Australian Fire Information, NAFI (http://www.firenorth.org.au/nafi2/) and Sentinel (http://sentinel.ga.gov.au/acres/sentinel/index.shtml). After the smoke has cleared, fire scars are mapped to determine burnt area, return time or frequency of fire, and other spatial statistics related to burnt area. The WA Land Information Authority (Landgate) has mapped fire scars across Australia on a monthly basis since 1997. Landgate uses data generated by the NOAA AVHRR series of satellites which has a pixel resolution of 1.1 km x 1.1 km. These large pixels are suitable for mapping extensive fire but are less sensitive where fires are small or the burn is patchy. The AVHRR-sourced data are well suited to the rangelands-wide reporting that ACRIS undertakes. Wildfire follows big rains: This is an obvious statement for most of the northern savannas, with fires returning each year during the dry season. Wildfire is more episodic in the arid zone but is related to successive years of above-average rainfall. The rainfall and burnt-area maps in Figure 1 show remarkably close spatial coupling between two-year antecedent rainfall and fire extent for the two most recent big wildfire events in central Australia.

Mobility plays a key role in the traditional and contemporary lifestyles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in regional and remote Australia. For all human populations, mobility is an important means of facilitating economic participation, the acquisition of goods and services and engaging in the social and cultural interactions that individuals and groups have the right to value. A common perception, however, is that the relatively high level of temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians creates frictions with mainstream models of economic participation and service delivery, and frustrates attempts to reduce Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disadvantage (Morphy 2010a, Prout 2008). This is an impression that has persisted since the first contact between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the European settlers, for the many policies designed to ‘civilise’ and ‘assimilate’ the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population that were to follow have revolved around an explicit aim of sedentisation as a precursor to further progress (Young 1990 p. 186). Despite the longevity and persistence of this view, even now only limited evidence exists on the drivers or extent of temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and there remain significant deficiencies in existing statistics. Further, evidence on best practice in accommodating such mobility into policy and practice remains critically under-developed. This report reviews the existing literature about the temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote Australia. It follows a number of other literature reviews on this topic, including Habibis et al. (2010), Memmott et al. (2004) and a comprehensive survey article by Prout (2008). While some of the same ground is covered as in those earlier contributions, the material covered here is aimed specifically at informing future research designs to increase our understanding of the temporary mobility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to facilitate the modelling of temporary population flows for the purpose of improving service delivery, resource allocation and employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

This thesis details the experiences of Aboriginal people involved in a variety of bush produce industries in Australia’s arid zone, focusing on effects to their livelihoods and well-being, and assessing ways in which benefits can be maximised, and risks minimised to ensure the development of a socio-culturally fair and equitable industry. It is centred on four case studies in central and southern Australia, where Aboriginal people are engaged in a range of activities and enterprises involving use of native plant produce for bush foods, medicines, and seeded jewellery. The overall process and methodology were informed by a Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) to development, with the central hypothesis of the thesis being that a rights-based SLA is needed to enhance the development of a socially just, environmentally and culturally sustainable, and equitable, bush produce industry for the Aboriginal people in Australia's arid lands. This PhD research concurs with previous research showing the primary incentives for Aboriginal people’s involvement in such industries are socio-cultural, rather than purely economic. Bush produce enterprises are based on a knowledge economy and the marketing of cultural heritage. Traditional Ecological Knowledge/Indigenous Knowledge (TEK/IK) is the basis of such enterprises and is fundamental to sustainable Aboriginal involvement and livelihood benefits (UNESCO, 1995). Producers have cultural rights and responsibilities that need to be respected and protected, and they require information in order to be able to make informed decisions about enterprise involvement and development. In this sense, culture is an asset which can significantly strengthen livelihood sustainability and there is a corresponding need to build Aboriginal people’s capacity and performance in these industries through a focus on culture, capability, commitment, and connections (Hagan, 2005; Sen, 1997; Nussbaum, 2000, 2011). Through the lens of the case studies and the diverse experiences of the research participants, the thesis identifies a number of key factors that need to be considered in the development of an Arid Zone bush produce industry that is socio-culturally just and beneficial to local Aboriginal livelihoods and well-being. These factors range from ensuring local engagement and agency in knowledge protection and management, through to the need for an innovative national policy approach recognising that diverse culture-based hybrid economies are the “real” economy in remote Australia (Altman, 2003, 2009; Altman, Buchanan and Biddle, 2006; Martin, 2006; Hunt, 2011). Additionally, an argument is made for aligning industry development with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN DRIP, 2007).

Most of Australia's geographical area is remote or very remote. Many parts of remote Australia are not incorporated into the area of a local government. For people in these areas, democratically elected and accountable local representation does not exist. How then are the local views of these people heard without bias and acted upon? This paper reviews the various institutional arrangements governing remote and unincorporated areas to reveal that while weak forms of representation exist they are far from being democratic, accountable and representative at the local level. As a second best solution to local and democratically elected government, this paper reviews available approaches for assessing the social, economic and environmental values held by people with a view to identifying those methods that may best work in remote and unincorporated Australia. The paper concludes that new methods are required based on a combination of remote sensing, participatory and integrated assessment approaches. The development of these new methods is area for future research.

The question of what being a domestic tourist might actually mean has attracted limited inquiry despite the volume of research dedicated to tourists and tourist experiences in the literature. The present study engages with this dilemma because it sought to understand challenges domestic 4WD tourists travelling in desert Australia may herald for desert Aboriginal people involved in tourism. The study implements a research design combining Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and visitor employed photography to consider how Being a domestic tourist may involve an ontological situation characterised by constitutive belonging. Using interpretive findings from a small sample of domestic tourists on a 4WD tag-along tour in Central Australia, this study acts as a step towards broader future inquiry. The findings suggest that the agency of the domestic tourists in this study reveals and upholds an idealised manner of historically constituted Being inherited from their dwelling within a broad community: Australia. As such, the domestic tourists in the study are proposed to uphold an inalienable relation with Central Australia. The study suggests that their Being is characterised by a situated freedom of perceiving Central Australian landscapes in accordance with their broad understanding and sense of belonging to Australia. The findings highlighted their avoidance of Aboriginal cultural landscape meaning that may have been intrinsic to their manner of Being. Further, the findings suggest that the domestic tourists in the study may have perceived 4WDing as symbiotic with idealised landscape conditions (the Outback), while also emulating a historically conditioned agency they perceived was available to them in Central Australia. The study findings raise various implications to inform future inquiry into the involvement of desert Aboriginal people in tourism, domestic tourism and desert 4WD tourism.

This final project report summarises two research cycles of Participatory Action Research (PAR) undertaken by a local community research team at Ntaria. Strengthening Community Research in Remote Service Delivery at Ntaria was managed and facilitated by Ninti One at the request of the Office for Indigenous Coordination Group )ICG), formerly Indigenous Policy Engagement Group (IPEG), FaHCSIA and at the invitation of Wurla Nyinta, the Ntaria Local Reference Group (LRG). Two research topics formed this project, the first of which had two research cycles: 1. Topic: Safe driving at Ntaria · Research cycle 1.1: Survey – Safe driving survey at Ntaria (May 2011) (reported in Lovell et al. 2011). · Research cycle 1.2: Focus groups and photo elicitation – Vehicle Safety Focus groups (August and September 2011) (Reported in Lovell et al. 2012). 2. Topic: Wurla Nyinta Community Perception Survey (September–November 2011) (Reported in Lovell et al. 2012). The formal objectives of the project were described in the Official Order for Ntaria as: To learn by doing an action research process that will support and build research knowledge, skills and competencies in Ntaria through individuals who will become identified community researchers, including: · A group of three to six Aboriginal people to be selected to become community researchers at Ntaria through a suitable process to be agreed by the community · Research training, supervision, support and mentoring for the selected community researchers through a combination of formal workshops to be held in Alice Springs, the community and ongoing guidance and on-the-job support · Participation in a program of research that enables strategic contributions to be made by community representatives to the implementation of Local Implementation Plans (LIPs) and future capacity to contribute to monitoring and evaluation. In this document, we report that the project has achieved the required outcomes in line with the contracted objectives, milestones and outputs. We illustrate the way that the project has engaged local community members in participatory action learning and research. The results include building the capacity of individual researchers and of the local community and local reference group to engage with the Remote Service Delivery National Partnership Agreement (RSD NPA) through addressing actions and making recommendations aligned with the Ntaria LIP.

mining; land rights

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) allows people to learn from past experiences, improve service delivery, plan and allocate resources and demonstrate results as part of accountability to stakeholders. M&E also assists in keeping projects on track, providing a basis for reassessing priorities and creating an evidence base for current and future projects. There is a growing interest in the measurement of social impact across the business, government and nonprofit sectors. In recognising the role that non-profit organisations play in ‘enhancing the economic, social, cultural and environmental wellbeing of society’, the Australian Government has recently focused on improving the measurements of social impact. This report describes the main monitoring and evaluating frameworks and methods used in Australia which include some assessment of social impact. Each of the following are discussed in terms of an overview of how it works (in terms of M&E), the benefits and limitations, examples of organisations using the technique and where to find further resources.

We describe small-scale biological surveys conducted by a collaboration of biologists and Traditional Owners designed to build scientific knowledge of the biota in remote desert regions of Western Australia. Importantly, while science driven (including systematic survey methods), the project also incorporated Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK). In doing so, it has assisted with cross-generational transfer and preliminary documentation of IEK in this region. Here, we describe a case study of surveys conducted with the Pila Nguru (Spinifex People) in the Spinifex Native Title Determined Area of the Great Victoria Desert. A total of 185 native plant species were recorded (representing 37 families and 94 genera). Only one individual of a weed species was recorded. Three plant species are new to science; Grevillea ilkurlka ms. Dicrastylis sp. ‘Ilkurlka’ and Gnephosis sp., with the first two of these species of conservation interest. The survey recorded 148 species of vertebrates; 72 birds, 21 mammals (of which six were introduced), 54 reptiles and one frog. Many animal names used by the Spinifex People were documented. The following animals that are of conservation interest were recorded: Itjarri-itjarri (Southern Marsupial Mole, Notoryctes typhlops), Nganamarra (Malleefowl, Leipoa ocellata), Murrtja (Brush-tailed Mulgara, Dasycercus blythi), and Princess Parrot (Polytelis alexandrae). We concur with previous authors that biological surveys, when cross-cultural, can not only build scientific knowledge, but contribute to broader social goals of assisting Aboriginal people with cross-generational transfer and documenting of IEK.

This paper offers insights and practical lessons for a ‘two-way’ approach to combining Indigenous and non-Indigenous ecological knowledge in environmental planning and management. It is based on the experience of developing an Indigenous Protected Area to conserve 10 million hectares of biologically and culturally significant land in the Southern Tanami region of Central Australia

Recently, the value of incorporating Indigenous ecological knowledge approaches in natural resource management has been increasingly recognised. In arid zone, Australia scientific interest in Indigenous ecological knowledge has tended to focus on native plants and animals and on customary ways of looking after country that Aboriginal people have developed over thousands of years of engagement with their environment. Far less attention has been paid to how Aboriginal perceptions of introduced species inform their ecological knowledge and land management practices. This study argues that it is important to take account of Aboriginal understandings of introduced species in addition to native species if a more sustainable approach to natural resource management is to occur across Australia. It draws on a recent cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research project conducted for the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre on feral camels in central Australia. In discussing how culture shapes Aboriginal people’s views on introduced species, we attend to the complexities of Aboriginal interactions with introduced species through time and space. In doing so, we move beyond simple categorisations of introduced animals as ‘belonging’ or ‘not belonging’ to a more nuanced appreciation of how context may influence shifts in perspectives and result in more flexible positions on management options. Finally, we discuss the need to incorporate both Aboriginal and Western scientific understandings concerning feral animals in developing strategies to manage the negative impacts of the animals.

This report meets the second milestone of the project ‘The provision of services in relation to production of a report, including literature review, analysis of results and recommendations and advice on monitoring and evaluation methodologies’ for which Ninti One has been contracted by FaHCSIA. It builds on the preliminary report and subsequent feedback from FaHCSIA, presenting the key findings of the research and providing recommendations and advice on the subject. To provide focus, some material within the preliminary report has not been carried forward into this version. It can be reviewed in the previous report. The objectives of the project are: 1. To review policy and practice in monitoring and evaluation methodologies for programs relevant to service delivery, community engagement, and economic participation from sources in Australia and internationally 2. To identify tools and techniques that are applicable to remote settlements and suitable for work with Indigenous people 3. To recommend a practical and workable approach to monitoring and evaluation in remote Indigenous communities. The analysis and recommendations that follow draw on the experience of Ninti One and the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (DKCRC) in the field of community-based research, project design and planning as well as our knowledge of the perspectives of business, government and community members on remote services and programs. This work was designed to be conducted within a short timeframe, to provide useful material to FaHCSIA staff working on new initiatives in monitoring and evaluation. As such, its contribution is to survey the literature and provide overall analysis and recommendations. A more detailed investigation of particular approaches and methodologies could certainly be undertaken as part of an extended assignment but has not been undertaken here.

Australia is committed to ‘closing the gap’ in disadvantage in remote Australia. The question for agencies, organisations and businesses is how to close the gaps that have grown over the past 200 years. What is required is ‘something truly different in the market that makes your customers’ lives better’ (Baum 2004). While not all innovations will result in something truly different, probability informs us that the greater the number of innovations the greater the chance of solving the complex problems of remote Australia. The single most important factor in a company’s level of innovation competence is building an innovative culture that has total leadership commitment. In providing the right climate for innovation, leaders need to challenge and involve employees by committing to a big problem. Leaders also need to motivate, inspire and direct followers, overcome intra-organisational obstacles, and promote organisational innovation. Management innovation, more than any other kind of innovation, has allowed companies to cross new performance thresholds. The dramatic shifts in competitive advantage have come, not as a result of technology and product innovation, but as a result of innovation in management principles and processes that create longlasting advantage.

We identify four principles that can promote the prospects of health outcomes for desert Aboriginal people from livelihoods engaged with land management. The principles were derived inductively using a grounded theory approach, drawing on primary research that used qualitative and participatory methods, and from relevant literature and theoretical frameworks. International and Australian literature offers evidence that supports desert Aboriginal people’s view that their health depends on their relationship with their land. Engagement with land management can lead desert Aboriginal people to feel that their own actions are consistent with their own sense of the right and proper way for them to behave towards land, family and community. This increased ‘sense of control’ impacts positively on health by moderating the impact of sustained stress from health risk factors in the environment and lifestyle. The four principles focus on underlying characteristics of Aboriginal land management that are important to promoting this increased ‘sense of control’: (1) Aboriginal land management governance recognises and respects Aboriginal custom and tradition, and is adaptive; (2) learning is embraced as a life-long process; (3) relationships are recognised as very important; and (4) partnerships give priority to doing things that all parties agree are important. These principles are presented as hypotheses that warrant further development and testing. While they do not account specifically for the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors on health, we expect that the increased sense of control that desert Aboriginal people are likely to develop when involved in Aboriginal land management that applies these principles will moderate the impact of such factors on their health. The principles offer a starting point for further development of criteria and standards for good practice in Aboriginal land management, potentially including an environmental certification scheme that integrates social and environmental outcomes.

Aboriginal people comprise ~30% of the Northern Territory population, but make up well under 10% of the government bureaucracy designed to serve that population. This paper is based on PhD research into Aboriginal experiences of participating in this bureaucracy. Interviews were conducted in 2007 with 76 people of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background who had worked in the Northern Territory Government since self-government in 1978. The process of recruiting interviewees revealed a high degree of career mobility between government and the Indigenous sector of publicly funded organisations which operates at arm’s length from government. This finding was quite pronounced in the desert centre of Alice Springs, at the periphery of the Northern Territory administration, where those who were encouraged as a livelihood option to build Aborigines’ numeric representation in government were unable to represent their people in more substantive ways without coming into tension either with the terms of their employment or with their communities. The paper explores the ways in which Aboriginal public servants sought substantively to represent others and the phenomenon whereby many who sought representative roles in the government of the desert were in orbit and thus neither inside nor outside but somewhere at the edges of government. The paper concludes by observing that the knowledge and experience of Aboriginal people who orbit at the edges of government may be made more accessible through collaborations with the Indigenous sector than solely through government employment.