KEY POINTS:
The realities of indigenous politics have settled on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Cabinet.
Meetings in remote Arnhem Land and Darwin have failed to quell Aboriginal pressure for constitutional recognition and changes to Northern Territory intervention.
Linking the two issues, Rudd insisted priority must remain on closing the gap in living standards between indigenous and mainstream Australia.
In other words, the intervention will continue and Aborigines will stay out in the constitutional cold for now.
"My immediate priority and that of the Government is to put in place systems of measurement, systems of funding and systems of management able to deliver real progress on closing the gap," he said yesterday.
But Rudd faces growing pressure to unwind some of the more drastic measures of the intervention launched last year by John Howard, and to make good his promise to hold a referendum on some form of constitutional recognition of Aborigines as the first Australians.
That pledge, given without any indication of timing, followed an election commitment by former Prime Minister Howard to hold a referendum on the issue within 18 months if his Coalition Government was re-elected.
With Howard gone, Rudd now faces the problems of indigenous disadvantage that have confounded all preceding Governments and which ensure Aborigines die 20 years earlier than other Australians and suffer appallingly high rates of disease, crime, homelessness, unemployment and almost every other measure of health, social and economic status.
His public "community cabinet" meeting in the isolated Aboriginal town of Yirrkala on Wednesday, and a closed Cabinet meeting in Darwin yesterday, were part of a rolling programme to take his Government to all parts of the nation.
So far more than 2000 people have attended community cabinet meetings. Rudd launched the programme to enable his ministers to keep in touch with ordinary Australians.
The NT meetings showed this engagement would not be easy, especially for a Labor Government which raised high expectations during the campaign for last November's elections.
While there has been considerable support within Aboriginal Australia for the intervention in the wake of horrific reports of child abuse, the far broader measures introduced with it have outraged others. Activists claim the laws passed to allow the intervention are racially discriminatory, fail to include adequate consultation with indigenous communities, and undermine rights.
Rudd reversed a number of the original measures, such as compulsory health checks for children and the axing of the right of Aboriginal communities to control access to their land.
But the remaining measures, including the quarantining of welfare payments to ensure money is spent on the essentials of life, continue to anger many, and have been criticised by federal Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma.
In Yirrkala indigenous leaders representing 4000 people presented Rudd with a petition demanding dramatic changes to the intervention - key among them an end to income quarantining - and constitutional recognition.
So far, the incomes of 14,300 people in 63 communities are being managed under the scheme, with more than 70 communities and nine town camp regions are being managed by federal bureaucrats.
The intervention is now being reviewed by a federal task force to determine what parts are working, whether it measures are effective, and how it has affected individuals and communities.
Rudd and Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard have also indicated that this is far higher on the Government's agenda than a referendum on constitutional recognition.
