The intervention is the most expensive attempt to change the relationship between remote Aboriginal Australia and the white nation, launched with a budget of $1.5 billion dollars. The Commonwealth government sought to restructure community economies, undertake health check programs for children, increase school attendance, restrict alcohol sales and quarantine income. At the same time the Northern Territory government terminated community councils and began implementing shires, resulting in an absence of community governance.

The NTER intervention is to be reviewed one year on, as promised by the ALP in the lead up to the election. According to the original terms of the emergency intervention, the one year anniversary also marks the end of the proposed 'stabilisation' phase (although all intervention measures have not yet reached all prescribed communities) and the point of transition to the 'normalisation' phase.

his seminar will provide a perspective on the Intervention from one of the largest Indigenous townships in the NT through the eyes of two doctoral research scholars who were researching in the community as the Intervention broke. The paper analyses the initial reactions of both the people of the region and their local organisations, as well as detailing their interactions with the Northern Territory Emergency Response Taskforce and other government agencies during the first month of the Intervention.