Victory, disaster or scapegoat? Aboriginal 'self-determination' policy in the Northern Territory during the 1970s

Abstract

It is commonly understood that the federal policy of Aboriginal self-determination was responsible for significant changes that occurred in the Territory's remote Aboriginal Indigenous settlements in the 1970s. Rather than the administrative changes that self-determination policy entailed, broader policy shifts associated with 'equal rights' enabled remote Indigenous people to enact their own agendas of reform. This reformism brought deep and lasting changes to the Territory's Indigenous nations, and shaped the modus operandum of the "communities" and town camps created by self-determination policy. This paper sheds new light on a controversial period in Territory history that has had lasting effects.