Ian Anderson compares the federal government's response to the Little Children Are Sacred report with the authors' recommendations.

In April 2002, the Council of Australian Governments commissioned the Steering Committee to produce a regular report against key indicators of Indigenous disadvantage. This report has the long-term objective of informing Australian governments about whether policy programs and interventions are achieving positive outcomes for Indigenous people.

Recent controversies, eg over intelligence in Iraq, have raised problems about the politicisation of official advice, particularly the supposedly factual or objective elements of advice. Objectivity is a contested value and the lines are often hard to draw between bare fact, spin and misrepresentation. Public servants are held to higher standards of objectivity than politicians...

This review draws on independent evaluations of the eight Council of Australian Governments trials to identify key lessons around new ways for governments to work together and with communities to address the needs of Indigenous Australians. The review found evidence of the value of governments and communities working together and identified implications for the future.

The 1966 equal pay decision is often blamed for the decline for Indigenous workers in the Northern Territory. But it was only the last straw, argues Thalia Anthony.