Black Politics: Inside the Complexity of Aboriginal Political Culture

Drawing on extensive interviews with activists and politicians, Black Politics explains the dynamics of Aboriginal politics. It reveals the challenges and tensions that have shaped community, regional, and national relations over the past 25 years. Since the early 1990s Aboriginal Australia has experienced profound political changes with very real and lasting implications, from the Mabo land rights case in 1992 and the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 2005, to more recent attempts to reduce the autonomy of remote communities. Sarah Maddison identifies the tensions that lie at the heart of all Aboriginal politics, arguing that until Australian governments come to grips with this complexity they will continue to make bad policy with disastrous consequences for Aboriginal people. She also offers some suggestions for the future, based on the collective wisdom of political players at all levels of Aboriginal politics.