In these racial enclaves, there are no jobs and therefore no prospect of meaningful participation in the wider economy. Education has failed their youth; health outcomes, driven by life choices, poor diet, and alcoholism, are disastrous; and disregard for law and order is widespread. In any sane world, such communities would be closed or subjected to decisive government intervention. Yet the opposite occurs: the only calls are for “self-determination,” more power, and more money for the very people and structures that have presided over this failure.
Prime Minister Albanese sought to create a legacy on symbolic gesture of a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament. He has shed public tears over this symbolic absurdity, yet remains dry-eyed at the brutal and preventable suffering of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory today.

This article focuses on the Northern Territory, the epicentre of the Gap, a jurisdiction directly and unquestionably under Canberra’s control. Though self-governing, it remains subject to Commonwealth authority and is answerable to the federal government. As the old saying goes, “You can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility.” Every act of violence, every case of abuse, every child growing up in a lawless camp happens under the direct jurisdiction of the Albanese government.

The lifting of alcohol bans, the collapse of law enforcement presence, and the return to pre-Intervention levels of chaos have all happened on Albanese’s watch. His government has the legislative power to act tomorrow, to reimpose protections, enforce education, and break the cycle of abuse, yet chooses to prioritise symbolic constitutional change over direct, life-saving intervention.

Many remote and very remote Aboriginal settlements were originally justified as a means of preserving a distinct ‘native life’ as a functioning pre-contact system of law, economy, and culture. Today, that foundation has almost entirely disappeared. The societal norms that once structured daily life have collapsed:

♦ Customary law as an operative governance system is absent; ceremonial authority is fragmented or symbolic, replaced by statutory councils and service delivery bodies.

♦ Economic self-sufficiency has vanished, replaced almost wholly by welfare dependency.

♦ Social cohesion has disintegrated under the pressures of violence, substance abuse, and humbugging.

♦ Cultural practice is discontinuous, often reconstructed for external consumption rather than embedded in daily governance.

The result is enclavism: the maintenance of ethnically homogeneous, closed settlements through racially restricted tenures, either through State legislation or exclusive native title, internal governance that enforces exclusivity, and a cultural narrative that no longer reflects the lived reality. These communities, far from preserving traditional life, now perpetuate post-cultural dysfunction behind a racial shield.

Frank wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 9:49am:

Cont.

In this way, education is not merely one Closing the Gap target among many, it is the keystone upon which progress in every other domain depends. Without addressing it decisively, gains in health, employment, justice, and wellbeing will continue to dissolve.
Criminological evidence consistently shows that chronic truancy is a primary risk factor for juvenile offending. In communities where the overwhelming majority of adolescents are disengaged from school:

♦ There is no structured daily routine or adult supervision.

♦ Peer groups form around anti-social behaviour, property crime, and substance abuse.

♦ Contact with police begins earlier, increasing the likelihood of juvenile detention.

The Closing the Gap data shows Indigenous youth are over-represented in detention at more than 20 times the rate of non-Indigenous youth. Education disengagement is not incidental to this figure, it is one of its root causes.

Government and advocacy responses perversely often frame attendance as a cultural issue, proposing “culturally responsive” schooling while tolerating chronically low attendance. This approach confuses cultural respect with acceptance of dysfunction, insulating harmful patterns from scrutiny. The reality is that attendance collapse is not an expression of cultural continuity; it is a symptom of post-cultural welfare dependency and the abdication of responsibility by community leadership.
...

Remote and very remote communities’ future is already determined. Those who gain a real education will leave, because there are no jobs and no economic future beyond permanent welfare dependence. What remains is a mendicant settlement where health outcomes are dictated not by government programs but by individual lifestyle choices — choices that must change if there is to be any improvement.

In such places, the “gap” is no longer open or bridgeable. It is deliberately closed from within. The wall is not just built but fortified, defended as cultural identity, and used to hold the outside world at bay. Despite the laws, ethics, and moral standards of a free modern society, it becomes an impenetrable barrier that protects a perversion, shielding behaviours that would be condemned anywhere else. This dynamic is not isolated; it is found in almost every remote and very remote community and homeland across the Northern Territory and beyond.

No government should abandon people behind the cultural wall, but in Australia, cowardice in leadership and ignorance in society keep it standing. The state’s hands are not bound by law or principle, but by fear of political backlash, fear of being branded racist, fear of confronting the truth. And that fear is sustained by a public that clings to romantic myths and media-fed illusions, blind to the reality of grotesque dysfunction in remote communities.
Ibid.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 10:56am:

Conclusion

The reality is stark: Closing the Gap has been weaponised into an Aboriginal political tool. Remote and very remote Indigenous communities are structurally incapable of meeting its targets, not through any absence of legal rights, public funding, or government commitment, but through persistent failure at the elder, family, and community level to enforce school attendance, maintain health, ensure the safety and wellbeing of their own community and foster wellbeing. Where there is no functioning economy, participation is impossible, ensuring that the gap will never close.

While communities refuse, resist, or reject the fundamental changes demanded by modernity  and government imposes no requirement, expectation, or obligation, voluntary or mandatory, nor even enforces existing laws such as school attendance, their children are condemned to remain shut out from the opportunities and standards of Australian society.

The truth no one will speak is that those given the most assistance are often the ones who make success impossible, defending the very conditions that keep them in failure.
https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/aborigines/why-the-gap-never-closes/




Which bit do you want to refute?

Frank wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 11:08am:


Nope. You're burying your point of exposure.

Oh, and preening.

But nobody reads it, old boy. Try to keep it punchy.

ProudKangaroo wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 11:12am:

What IS your question?

I posted extensively from the article, with a link to it. I did not post the entire article. I posted its conclusion twice. It is a very succint summary. Is there any part of any of the exerpts or of the conclusion that you want to disagree with or refute? Which bit? What IS your question?

mothra wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 9:44am:



Lol at this, halfwit:


Trauma Behind the Clinic Door

What I offer is testimony, a lived account of what it means to bear witness to unbearable things while working at the edge of the healthcare system.

Each day of my work in remote Aboriginal communities brought the possibility of motor vehicle accidents, suicides, severe injuries, of stabbings and killings — events that, over time, left a lasting imprint.  While it is impossible to recount them all, the two cases below offer a glimpse into the kinds of trauma I regularly faced as a remote area nurse.

In one case that still haunts me, I treated a woman whose jealous husband had forced a burning stick into her vagina and broken all her fingers. I will never forget the smell of burnt flesh or the way she flinched when I reached out to help her. There was no women’s shelter, no local psychologist, no police presence until hours later. I dressed her wounds and tried to offer comfort, but the damage was far beyond anything a bandage could fix.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat up, shaking — devastated not only by what had been done to her, but by the cruel reality that this kind of violence was not unusual.

Another evening at the remote clinic I was called to treat a baby boy by his mother. She had left him in the care of her sister to go drinking, and the sister decided to join the drinkers, leaving the baby alone in the backyard. A dog had torn off the baby’s nappy and ripped the skin from his scrotum. Alone in the clinic, I treated him as best I could. There was no doctor, no paediatric support, and no one to call for debriefing afterwards.

I remember wrapping him gently, speaking to him quietly, as if I could somehow undo the pain. When he heard what happened, the father of the baby picked up the animal and killed it with his bare hands.

Nurses working in remote Aboriginal communities in Australia face unique and compounding psychological burdens.  They frequently witness community-wide trauma and must often navigate moral distress while working  in under-resourced settings. These conditions result in significant mental health consequences. Remote Aboriginal communities present one of the most complex environments for health- service delivery.  Nurses stationed in these areas not only function as primary health care providers, but often take on roles as advocates, crisis responders and community members.
While these roles are vital, they expose nurses to repeated trauma resulting in emotional and psychological fatigue.  Despite growing awareness of burnout, the concepts of vicarious trauma and collateral damage remain largely unrecognised in remote health policy and practice.

Remote Aboriginal communities face some of the most confronting health and social challenges imagineable. There are disproportionately high rates of preventable chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular and rheumatic heart diseases. Mental health conditions are often undiagnosed or untreated, compounded by overcrowded housing with up to 80% of homes in very remote Indigenous communities considered overcrowded. Rates of youth suicide in Aboriginal populations are more than twice that of non-indigenous youth, and domestic and family violence are both widespread and under-reported.

Nurses may be the only health professional for hundreds of kilometres, coping not only physical illness but acute emotional distress and community crises. Over time, this exposure becomes corrosive. Even if you don’t name it as trauma, the damage accumulates. For many, it doesn’t fully resonate until after they leave.

Vicarious trauma refers to the cumulative impact on professionals who are indirectly exposed by empathetic engagements with victims. Unlike burnout, vicarious trauma is specifically trauma-related and often mirroring post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is a serious occupational hazard for nurses who work in these challenging and isolated environments. They often care for patients who have experienced sexual abuse, violence, incarceration, substance misuse and neglect.  This continuous exposure to suffering  accumulates. One of the cruelest aspects of vicarious trauma is that nurses don’t recognise it while it is happening.  The exhaustion, insomnia, and emotional numbing feel like normal reactions to an abnormal workload. It is only once they leave the communities and stop running  day-to-day on adrenaline that the realisation of the pschological toll hits home. While working, they may appear composed and resilient, but once removed from the environment, suppressed trauma often surfaces.



https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/aborigines/the-trauma-behind-the-clinic-do...

Frank wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 1:35pm:


Thank you, you answered the question, but do try to keep up.

You asked whether anyone can dispute the points in the article or claim parts of it are untrue.

Before tearing it apart, as you requested, it made sense to first establish a baseline of the points, so the goalposts aren't moved later.  Something you are notorious for.

By doing that, you've, perhaps unwittingly, drawn at least one line in the sand, which means when time allows, someone can review the article, the claims it makes, and highlight any that are unsupported, mere "trust me bro" opinion, or demonstrably false.

Given the source, there will likely be plenty, but we'll see once the research is done.

Your reaction, predictable as ever, will be... interesting either way.

Frank wrote on Aug 26^th, 2025 at 1:56pm:


Your problem is that you ignore what you can't handle.  Head in the sand.

The actions of a coward, too afraid to face things head-on.

Since I let the truth and facts guide me, you often have to ignore a lot of what I say to continue to protect your worldview, so this childish take of yours is of absolutely no surprise.