Central Land Council Director David Ross: self-determination has been “bastardised and shoved into the closet” by governments. He issues a forceful call for Aboriginal people to reclaim the concept of self-determination on their own terms.

Is the use of powers contained in an “extraordinary bill with extraordinary powers in extraordinary circumstances” justified to ban the Hells Angels from having a drink in the NT’s pubs?

Police operations like Thumper in Katherine and other towns of the Top End do not stand unsupported. Thumping is now big business.

The obvious point is that this sort of politically attractive – but fundamentally naive and cruel – quick fix does not work. To get kids back into school successfully takes more than tough love, fines or hawk-eyed cops. Success will come with resources, planning, proper encouragement, good role models, joyful love and humour.

“They used to go up to him and sort of play with him, wanking him, some of the kids used to suck him off. And I was one of them. There was a lot of others kids too that sucked him off and wanked him.”

Olga Havnen Almost a year ago I wrote here of the magnitude of Olga Havnen’s job as the replacement for Bob Beadman in the key role of Northern Territory Coordinator-General for Remote Service Delivery: The most challenging part of Havnen’s new job will be to renew the shattered faith and trust in governments as service [...]

On Saturday new NT Chief Minister Mills flew to Gove on the far north-east of the NT. This was a very different trip to last week’s fly-in, fly-out trips to Nguiu, Ramingining and Wadeye. No triumph, no candidates, media or minders in tow. At the 2012 NT election the CLP didn’t put a dent in the firm 32-year Labor hold on the local seat of Nhulunbuy.

Johns, Price and her supporters and advisers and the editorial team at The Australian need to wake up to the realisation that as much as they may dislike it the politics of racial division have little place in the contemporary Northern Territory.New Chief Minister Terry Mills has made clear that in relation to Aboriginal issues his CLP government will concentrate on the politics of unity – not division.

Mills and the CLP got smart – and got some smart advice and advisors – and realised that government in the NT was theirs for the taking – not by the usual head-butting over seats in the northern suburbs of Darwin but by concentrating on what had long been accepted as Labor’s heartland, the bush seats. And they didn’t forget that they only needed one seat to get them over the line. By close of the count Saturday night the CLP had taken government.

Paul Henderson’s NT Labor is a shoo-in to win the NT election next Saturday. Not because its policies or political performances are any better than the opposition Country Liberals (they aren’t) or because it has won the battle for the hearts and minds of the NT electorate (what battle?) but because it has sold the party to voters better on screen and in the press. Henderson (“Hendo to you, mate”) set the tone from the start — this election would be a presidential contest between he and the Country Liberals’ Terry Mills.