There are no guarantees that the approaches introduced since 2004 will be any more successful than the old ones if the wider governance issues facing both Indigenous communities and governments are not addressed. The COAG change agenda requires that governments give their own governance capacities and the ‘funding mess’ urgent attention if they are to provide the quality of services due to all Indigenous people as citizens. Sustained, facilitative support from governments to strengthen the capacity of Indigenous community governance is also necessary if they are to develop effective partnerships with Indigenous communities to achieve that. There are only limited signs of either happening at present, but a reinvigorated COAG, through its Indigenous Working Group (COAG 2007), could provide the political drive needed.

The conservative national ideology that prevailed through this period left little room for the essential reforms and capacity strengthening support that was needed. By trying to enforce a single definition of the problem (the need to bring Indigenous people into the mainstream) within a complex systems context, power holders in Australia in the last decade have countenanced only a singular solution. Whilst that may meet some Indigenous aspirations, recent literature about governance suggests that an analysis and synthesis of multiple dimensions and knowledge-frameworks about complex social issues is required. The ‘framings’ of the governance challenges that Indigenous people bring to the fore vary, as do the framings of the non-Indigenous players who surround them. Top-down approaches to problems framed by the powerful is the approach that has been exercised increasingly forcefully in Australia throughout the period of this research, at least until late 2007. An alternative is to adopt a more reflexive and adaptive approach to governance, which appreciates the significance of political history, pays attention to power, knowledge and different ‘framings’ of problems, and leaves open a range of pathways for Indigenous people (Leach et al. 2007). What self-determination means now, and how governance processes can enable it, remains a matter for dialogue. A serious, respectful and engaged conversation is needed between governments and Indigenous people about how to meet diverse Indigenous goals and expectations through a negotiated process at many levels, from the local to the national. A governance of diverse possibilities is required. Whether the new Australian Labor Government can lead such a process remains to be seen.