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The engagement of Indigenous Australians in economic activity is a matter of long-standing public concern and debate. Jon Altman has been intellectually engaged with Indigenous economic activity for almost 40 years, most prominently through his elaboration of the concept of the hybrid economy, and most recently through his sustained and trenchant critique of policy. He has inspired others also to engage with these important issues, both through his writing and through his position as the foundation Director of The Australian National University's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy research from 1990 to 2010. The year 2014 saw both Jon's 60th birthday and his retirement from CAEPR. This collection of essays marks those events. Contributors include long‑standing colleagues from the disciplines of economics, anthropology and political science, and younger scholars who have been inspired by Jon's approach in developing their own research projects. All point to the complexity as well as the importance of engaging with Indigenous economic activity — conceptually, empirically and as a strategic concern for public policy.

Electoral success of independents and minor parties is often interpreted as indicating a weakening of two‐party systems of political competition. This paper, on all thirteen elections for the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly since 1974, observes that independents have enjoyed far more success than minor parties. It argues that independent success has reflected a continuing strong two‐party system, not a weakening one. Six of ten successful independents in NTLA elections have been "splitters" from the Country Liberal Party in times of intra‐party turmoil. Their subsequent electoral success as independents in divisions previously very safe for the CLP leads to development of a "lopsided seats" hypothesis; that independents succeed in electoral divisions where the two‐party contest has become lopsided, with one major party attracting twice the votes of the other or more. Two successful "non‐splitter" independents in the 2016 election also contested such divisions — one lopsided to the CLP and one to Labor. This latter successful independent ran with the support of a Yolgnu First Nation organisation, which re‐opens questions in the literature about Aboriginal candidates and Aboriginal voters, including turnout levels. A jurisdiction‐wide graphic technique of "proportionality profiling" is applied to all thirteen NTLA elections and contextualises the later division‐level analysis.

This paper examines developments and dilemmas in relations between local governments and Indigenous Australians over the last quarter century. It establishes a framework for analysis based on differences in local government systems, circumstances and populations. It then examines two sets of developments in relations which have occurred in contrasting circumstances. The first is ongoing poor relations in incorporated local government areas, focusing on a complex of issues surrounding land ownership, rates and services. The second is discrete predominantly Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities which have been themselves becoming local governments. Both of these sets of developments are seen as being accompanied by significant dilemmas. In relation to the first, the major dilemma identified is how superordinate levels of government should best proceed in attempts to improve relations. In relation to the second, major dilemmas are identified relating to Indigenous 'ownership' of the resulting local government structures and the weakness of the financial position of these newly-emerging local governments. The paper suggests there have been some very significant and quite complex developments in relations between local governments and Indigenous Australians over the last quarter century. However, these developments have only tentatively moved relations in a more positive direction, if indeed at all. Poor relations still predominate between local governments and Indigenous Australians.

"This paper examines recent local government reform in the Northern Territory from two perspectives. The first is a quantitative perspective on population and finances, which focuses on the mixing of diverse interests in the recent changes. The second is a more observational perspective gained from working with one pre-reform local government and now the new larger local government that has replaced it. The paper argues that the recent changes are generational in nature in a number of different ways. It also argues that the greater challenge for the new local governments may be their vast geographic scale, rather than their mixing of diverse interests."--Abstract. ; Introduction -- Population and financial analysis: mixing diverse interests -- The problem of scale: an observational approach -- How did it happen? the idea of generational change -- Conclusion -- References

The engagement of Indigenous Australians in economic activity is a matter of long-standing public concern and debate. Jon Altman has been intellectually engaged with Indigenous economic activity for almost 40 years, most prominently through his elaboration of the concept of the hybrid economy, and most recently through his sustained and trenchant critique of policy. He has inspired others also to engage with these important issues, both through his writing and through his position as the foundation Director of The Australian National University's Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy research from 1990 to 2010. The year 2014 saw both Jon's 60th birthday and his retirement from CAEPR. This collection of essays marks those events. Contributors include long‑standing colleagues from the disciplines of economics, anthropology and political science, and younger scholars who have been inspired by Jon's approach in developing their own research projects. All point to the complexity as well as the importance of engaging with Indigenous economic activity — conceptually, empirically and as a strategic concern for public policy.

This paper identifies two periods of punctuated change in the content and style of Australian Indigenous policy in the last fifty years. It also identifies a third period in which attention to Indigenous policy was heightened through the nationalisation of land issues already well‐established on the agendas of sub‐national jurisdictions. The paper relates all three periods to the changing federal institutions of Australian Indigenous policy, with the Commonwealth slowly exploring its post‐1967 role as a national government in Indigenous affairs. In later sections, the paper identifies some more conceptual bases of changing policy agendas, through ideas of the competing principles of equality, choice and guardianship and the generational moral dynamics of Indigenous affairs.

In the mid 1970s HC Coombs was a major promoter of the idea behind the CDEP scheme: that rather than pay lots of Aboriginal people in remote areas unemployment benefits it would be more constructive for them to be employed part‐time by local Indigenous organisations to undertake socially useful tasks. From this simple idea was born one of the most significant and, in time, one of the largest Indigenous‐specific programs Australia has seen, the Community Development Employment Projects scheme. The birth was not easy and neither has been the subsequent life of what I have called, with great licence, Coombs' bastard child.