A veteran ABC journalist has delivered a searing analysis of Northern Territory politics in a new book that chronicles how government policies have worsened life outcomes for Aboriginal people in the NT.
In his new book The Northern Territory: A Litany of Failure, Murray McLaughlin — who worked as an ABC TV current affairs journalist and later as an adviser to the Northern Land Council (NLC) — argues the federal government has been mostly passively complicit in the welfare of the Territory's Aboriginal citizens declining over five decades.
As well as a critique of failure, the book serves as an appeal to the federal government to intervene in a territory McLaughlin describes as a "beguiling and bewitching place, a unique wonderland".
"While Canberra's reluctance to dictate prevails, one certainty remains: the Territory will never right itself.
"A mendicant jurisdiction beholden to the Commonwealth is allowed to bring embarrassment and shame upon the whole country with policy agendas that disproportionately impact on Aboriginal people while it lavishes benefits on the non-Aboriginal population."
He says the Albanese government "has done little to avert the social catastrophe unravelling before its eyes".
"As Canberra pours billions of dollars into the Territory to shore up northern defence systems and the petrochemical industry prepares to prosper from the bountiful gas fields to be fracked in the…
