Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner recently highlighted an overarching challenge for the territory, and arguably for all of northern Australia to break the social and economic cycles of severe disadvantage that perpetuate problems for generations.
As with many entrenched cycles of disadvantage, it’s easy to dream up policy solutions that rely on bottomless government coffers, and to call for cross-portfolio responses.
Creating stable, meaningful economic opportunities for northern Australian youth would surely reduce crime rates, and that’s rightly an agenda of the NT and Queensland governments. But it will take time to implement and to produce results. And for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians living in remote communities, economic opportunities are often not sustainable if they prevent them living on Country.