Comment on the Queensland Government's Wildlife Management Review Discussion Paper; by CAEPR researchers Jon Altman and Michelle Cochrane, addressing Indigenous interests and property rights in wildlife, and their sustainable harvest.

Two submissions on Capacity Building; one comprising comments by Professor Jon Altman to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Inquiry into Capacity Building in Indigenous Communities, and the second CAEPR's submission to the Inquiry, by Jon Altman and Will Sanders.

This submission to the Review of the National Biodiversity Strategy challenges the adequacy of the Consultation Draft's coverage of the roles of Indigenous peoples in biodiversity management, and makes a number of recommendations drawing on current initiatives and available research.

Under the Aboriginal Lands Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 (ALRA) Aboriginal freehold land has always extended down to the low water mark. In a historic majority decision on 30 July 2008, the High Court of Australia ruled on appeal in the Blue Mud Bay case that, in effect, the ALRA also applies to the column of water above the intertidal zone. This paper contrasts settler Australian and Yolngu ways of conceptualising and giving meaning to the bodies of salt water that settler Australians call ‘seas’ and ‘oceans’.

'The literacy question in remote Indigenous Australia'. The literacy debate rarely addresses the critical social and historical factors that also account for why literacy levels among remote Indigenous youth are lower than their mainstream counterparts. The focus on schooling obscures the less obvious fact that we must also be cognisant of the broader sociocultural factors associated with literacy acquisition, maintenance and transmission.

'The untimely abolition of the Community Development Employment Program'. This paper was prepared as a submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment (2008 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2008. It focuses on proposed changes to the Social Security Act 1991 that would facilitate changes to the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme, and examines the serious potential consequences of abolishing CDEP as currently formulated in non-remote areas by July 2009 and remote areas by July 2011.

'Submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Inquiry into Community Stores in Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities'. This submission briefly addresses the Inquiry's three terms of reference: food supply, quality, cost and competition issues; the effectiveness of the Outback Store model and other private, public and community store models; and the impact of these factors on the health and economic outcomes of communities.

"A Brief Commentary in Response to the Australian Government Discussion Paper ‘Optimising Benefits from Native Title Agreements’ and the Report of the Native Title Payments Working Group".

'Developing a national Indigenous policy framework that recognises needs, rights and legacies and delivers results', based on a presentation to the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) National Conference, ‘Building a Fair Australia in Tough Economic Times’, Australian Technology Park, Sydney, on 2 April 2009. This paper examines current Indigenous policy, including Closing the Gap, a monolithic approach that privileges statistical equality over all else and undervalues difference and diversity.

'Prospects for closing the gap in a recession: Revisiting the role of macroeconomic factors in Indigenous employment', examines how current economic crises and macroeconomic behavioural patterns might affect Indigenous labour force participation, including the relative role of demand and supply factors, the dynamics of Indigenous employment, and the implications for the Australian Employment Covenant and government policy objectives of 'closing the gap'.