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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.

It took a little longer than originally planned but Adam Giles has taken power in the NT. So how did Australia’s first Aboriginal political leader make it to the top? It wasn’t easy.

For mine, Anderson used “boys” and “little boys” as dog-whistles to the broader Aboriginal community in the NT to send a barely-encoded message that the pretenders to the Mills throne are no more than boys, uncircumcised (or sub-incised) grown men unworthy of consideration as men.

Yesterday afternoon the slow moving train wreck that is the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party government led by Terry “Freckles” Mills drove itself over a cliff. Just six months old and riddled with in-fighting and struggling to get a message — any message — across, the CLP may soon split into a smattering of fringe [...]

Peter Hanks QC: ” … If the facts as alleged in the 8 statutory declarations are accurate, several offences against s. 266(2) of the Electoral Act (NT) were committed at Wadeye … offences that seriously threaten the integrity of he operation of the Electoral Act (NT) and the sytem of representative government in the Northern Territory.”

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.

Bess Price, CLP candidate for the massive seat of Stuart (think Victoria plus Tasmania), kicked off her election campaign with an attack on local Amnesty International workers and a senior Aboriginal activist that smacked more of Pauline Hanson’s politics than the sedate election campaign conduct we are used to in Territory politics. Price went on national TV to join a debate that for most in the NT had long faded into history — intra-racial envy.

While I’m prob’ly not black enough for the likes of Andrew Bolt and Bess Price, I’m damn certain I’m still not white enough for the rest of you. Half-breeds like me, we’re still pawns in the middle of a big, nasty, lateral violence fueled discourse, led by self-interested types with ulterior motivations. And that’s why I fight.

I am a member of the McGinness Family – the eldest Granddaughter of Jack McGinness, freedom fighter and committed human rights campaigner. The legacy of my Gurindji family and our early day revolutionaries at Wave Hill are also part of my rich culture and heritage. We continue our fight for freedom and rights in this country.