Still, his government includes several ministers who have demonstrated a capacity, even a determination, to make things better. Peter Reith has developed an innovative employment policy for Aborigines that has produced promising if mixed results. David Kemp is a zealot when it comes to literacy and numeracy. Even the hapless and paternalistic John Herron has embraced a policy of regional autonomy that must be a foundation of any effort to achieve reconciliation. Yet these efforts are largely uncoordinated.
Progress is uneven and largely unmeasured against benchmarks.
This is even more so with state and local government and the non-government sector. The result is that for every good news story there are many more examples where conditions are deteriorating. The number of indigenous Australians in vocational training is increasing, but so, too, is the level of domestic violence in many communities, as is the ratio of indigenous to non-indigenous people in Northern Territory jails. A federal minister for Aboriginal Affairs of cabinet rank should oversee the implementation of the strategy and an independent agency should report annually on results, providing taxpayers with evidence that the money is well-spent. Wooldridge remains far and away the person best equipped to oversee a massive task.