This paper, adapted from the ANU- Toyota Public Lecture ‘Closing the Gaps in Indigenous Mortality and Housing: Perspectives from the Social Sciences’ presented at the ANU on Friday 4 April 2008. In it the author argues: "On April 6, 2005 John Howard, on a visit to Wadeye in the Northern Territory, opened up the ‘issue...

Western Australia sits poised to reap huge benefits from a super-cycle of resource exploitation. Labour demand is at an all-time high and challenges in securing an adequate labour supply are already evident. It is ironic then, that the very people whose land base is exploited to generate much of this wealth, who are often located...

The report begins with a discussion of methodology before turning to a description of the region’s water resources. The focus is on three linked broad perspectives on water: a historical analysis of the political economy of water; a sectoral analysis of water in the regional ‘hybrid’ economy; and a spatial analysis of water governance in...

Immediately following the June 2007 release of Pat Anderson and Rex Wild’s Little Children Are Sacred report into child abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Indigenous communities, the Howard Government declared a ‘national emergency’ in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. This announcement subsequently brought about the most radical legislative and policy shifts seen in...

John Taylor and Nicholas Biddle have modelled the contribution of net migration to small area population change to address the question of how to be sure that we are measuring the same population over time. This research uses a non-jurisdictional typology of Indigenous settlement reflective of different residential arrangements, and the results have implications for...