On the Long Uphill Track [Book Review]

Helen Hughes' writing on Aboriginal policy has been extremely influential. It is reflected in articles by commentators and editorials in the Australian and other major newspapers; referred to in speeches by the Minister for Indigenous Affairs; and criticised in seminars mounted by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. Hughes has struck a chord that resounds in no small measure in the current intervention in the Northern Territory, and she is in the rare and fortunate position of being able to judge whether she is right by virtue of the success or failure of that intervention. From that perspective any criticism of her book must necessarily end up being, in part at least, a commentary on that intervention. Review(s) of: Lands of Shame: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 'Homelands' in Transition, by Helen Hughes; Centre for Independent Studies, 2007, $38.