Lacking strong leadership, and divided about the best practical measures to pursue, the aborigines are now mainly seeking legal rights.
They view the intervention as a return to the official paternalism that prevailed before the aborigines won their long battle for land rights 35 years ago.
Others capture a sense of the sacred in the middle of Australia's Outback, where Ayer's Rock -- or Uluru, as it's known to the Aborigines -- stands.
To find the truth, Cashin has to deal with the seemingly endemic racial prejudice against the Aborigines, corrupt and inept colleagues, and the residue of his own past.
She followed it with "Daisy Bates in the Desert, " an equally vivid historical portrait, this time of an Irish woman who spent 30 years among the Aborigines in Australia.
Republicanism will not stop racism, against them or the Aborigines, the country's first inhabitants, but it would reinforce the feeling of all Australians that this is their country too.
But the more he has dug in his heels over these symbolic aspects, the more he has inflamed the aborigines and their supporters, who include Australia's most influential newspapers.
That judgment went further than a High Court ruling of 1992, known as the Mabo case, which established that aborigines had the right to claim native title to traditional lands, something never recognised before.
ECONOMIST: The aboriginal patterns that haunt Australia | The
On the edge of town, a new cultural centre is due to open in early 2009 showing the history of aborigines, pioneers and writers such as Henry Lawson who came, saw and wrote about the region.
Today Aborigines remain the poorest, sickest and most desperate group of people in the country.
His actions have divided urban liberals, the main champions of aborigines' rights to self-determination.
Aborigines believe the spirits of their ancestors cannot rest in peace until their bones are buried in their native ground.
BBC: NEWS | UK | England | Devon | Aboriginal skulls to return home
Its proponents, however, point to the shaming statistic that aborigines on average die almost 11 years younger than other Australians.
His tough stand on aborigines recalls the one he took against boat refugees in 2001, helping him win his third election later that year.
We have a myriad of unimportant issues that could distract us, including one of the highest rates of teenage suicide in the developed world, the marginalisation of native aborigines and unemployment.
Among aborigines on the front lines however, opinion varies.
It is also the most controversial intervention in aboriginal affairs in the 40 years since Australians endorsed a referendum transferring power to legislate for aborigines from states to the federal government.
At the 1998 convention, just under half the 152 delegates were women and five were aborigines (slightly more than their proportion in the population).
Two news items were removed from CNNI's newscasts in September: on Malaysian orang asli (aborigines) and the Pope's return to the Vatican from Paris.
Ill treatment has bred suspicion, and aborigines worry that the statute law in which their rights are enshrined can be changed relatively easily, so they want some sort of recognition in the constitution.
Kenneth Branagh is Mr. Neville, a predatory martinet with the title of chief protector of Aborigines in Western Australia.
Mr Latham's earlier pledges to make a formal apology to aborigines and to restart the debate on an Australian republic have barely featured in his campaign.
ECONOMIST: Labour's feisty leader takes the election down to the wire
The most likely interpretation is that aborigines may enter land to hold ceremonies, visit sacred sites and even gather bush foods as long as they do nothing to interfere with a farmer's livestock, fences and pastures.
ECONOMIST: The aboriginal patterns that haunt Australia | The
Australians voted overwhelmingly then to repeal a clause that had excluded aborigines from being counted in the census.
ECONOMIST: More moves towards restitution for native Australians
Aborigines were mentioned cursorily in the constitution, and only to exclude them from the new country built on their tribal lands.
ECONOMIST: More moves towards restitution for native Australians
Aborigines were not consulted in the writing of a document that ignored their occupation of Australia for more than 40, 000 years.
Forrest was joined earlier this year by fellow Australian billionaires James Packer, Kerry Stokes and Lindsay Fox in funding a philanthropic campaign called Generation One that was designed to raise awareness of the high unemployment and poor health of Aborigines.
FORBES: Australia's Richest Finds Funding For Ambitious Expansion
The issue has become embroiled with a racial campaign led by Pauline Hanson, an independent member of the federal Parliament, whose controversial remarks about aborigines and Asians have received wide media coverage.
The Wik judgment, by overturning paternalistic notions of aborigines' status, may force Australia to try a new approach.
ECONOMIST: The aboriginal patterns that haunt Australia | The
应用推荐