The issues bearing on remote communities, welfare, and economy are not new. Four of them frame this account of the Western Arrernte outstations and their CDEP schemes.^[48] The outstation system is one of the largest in Australia. It developed from Ntaria, the erstwhile Lutheran mission of Hermannsburg that lies due west of Alice Springs and south of the MacDonnell Ranges in an arid but beautiful landscape.

More than a decade ago, Young noted that 'remote communities throughout Australia depend heavily on public subsidies for the provision of services' and, due to public sector employment, for a high proportion of family incomes (1988: 123). More recently, Taylor and Bell have remarked that lack of education, 'policy prescriptions and cultural preference' inhibit the migration of remote Aboriginal people (1997:408). The Western Arrernte are such a group. They have shown a marked reluctance to migrate although there is plenty of intra-regional movement between Ntaria, the outstation system, and Alice Springs. Staying mainly in one place, Western Arrernte people have passed from a situation of mission administered subsidy, through training wages and unemployment benefits (UB), to the current CDEP. This has occurred in the course of 40 years.

To the conditions of public subsidy and cultural reluctance to migrate, a third condition can be added: the corrosive impact of long-term dependency (see Pearson 2000; Sanders 1985, 1993). Today Western Arrernte people do not define themselves simply in terms of kin relations and ritual status. Issues of work role and occupational standing are also part of their identity. Nonetheless these sets of values can conflict. An outstation movement has not meant return to the old way of life, but at the same time, ties to aspects of that life make pursuing new values difficult. An impasse occurs in which people can neither return to the past nor find easy resolutions in the present. Welfare may not be intrinsically corrosive but the impasse it signals is debilitating. It undermines social cohesion, confidence and initiative (Peterson 1998).

The fourth and final pertinent condition is the limited economy of central Australia. Pastoralism was always tenuous and, especially west of the Stuart Highway, clearly a marginal industry even by the time of World War II. There is some mining and extensive natural gas deposits but not enough to constitute a major industrial complex. Alice Springs today is dominated by a variety of service industries to Aborigines, tourists, other residents, and the Pine Gap installation. Linked to these industries is the domain of national parks, land care and the like. These provide only modest employment and income for investment, in comparison with the royalty-rich parts of Arnhem Land. Moreover, these service industries have some notable features. Centralian tourism, like Third World tourism, tends to import its requirements. It does not stimulate local manufacturing or primary production. Like the other service industries, tourism offers employment that requires high levels of literacy and personnel management skills. It is not a mass employer although it does generate demand for repair and maintenance (R&M) of roads, plant and equipment in addition to the R&M required on communities. Service industry in Alice Springs is partially pillarised. While whites work in Aboriginal organisations, most Aboriginal people are confined to Aboriginal service areas. Finally, small business is mainly service, retail or commercial, and based in Alice Springs. There is a notable lack of small business in the rural desert areas. In short, this is a limited economy focused on Alice Springs. Remote communities are very marginal and in general terms there are limited opportunities for Aborigines.

The fourth condition can be linked with the first in order to observe that public subsidy in forms such as CDEP is a prominent part of Western Arrernte life because the region is economically marginal, and would be marginal whoever lived there. By virtue of their history, Aborigines are further disadvantaged. This directs attention to the other two conditions: reluctance to migrate might be reduced by less subsidy but not much. Western Arrernte people remain where they are for reasons of cultural preference strengthened by their sense of a racialised environment beyond their own domain. They are not only different but also peripheralised. Better levels of education might change these preferences but desire for education rests in part on the opportunities it presents. In an economically marginal area, education lacks meaning and this is reflected in the tiny minority of Arrernte over the age of 15 engaged in further study (Papunya Regional Council (PRC) 1999:14).^[49] Regrettably, high achievement is required to make the leap into town-based service industry. Overall then, life is hard. Public subsidy in the form of welfare brings low esteem in white society and many Western Arrernte care about this. It accentuates the sense of impasse and causes immense frustration.

My account of the Western Arrernte outstation system and CDEP is framed by these conditions. I focus on what is possible in this circumstance rather than on changing these conditions, some of which are intractable. In particular I am interested in initiatives that Western Arrernte people have taken to address their situation. I give a brief history of the outstations, describe some aspects of CDEP, note some problems, and offer some proposals.