In thinking about the governmental structures that acted as nodes in a network of potential change agents, several officials stand out in this research. It has been noted elsewhere that ‘the response to altering the status quo [of Creek Camp] has been limited along all links of the decision making chain’ (Holcombe and Sanders 2007a: 345). Here I would like to give further consideration to the make-up of this chain. As a multi-sited chain, its links are mobilised across NT Government departments and are at once hierarchical (‘change must come from the top’) and horizontal in the shared nature of the policy discourse and its emergence as a rationality. Without focusing unduly on the role of any one official, it seems to me that a policy language developed, which ensured that those officials ‘on the front line’ spoke in concert. Once this language emerged, there was little shifting it, and the line between what was apparently legally possible and what was policy seemed to become blurred. The officers that emerged in this research at this front line were the ACGC CEO, officers in the local government department and officers in the DPI.

Having finished his contract, the ACGC CEO who began his three year tenure as our research project was beginning has now left. Our research relationship, however, has continued with the council. An integral element of the project is that we ensure that our field research coincides with the monthly council meeting, although it may be every third or fourth meeting that we can attend. However, there had been little or no mention of the Creek Camp issue since we tabled our third and final report to the ACGC in July 2006, although we had suggested a number of ideas for ‘action’ or ‘consideration’ from this and previous reports. One idea that developed from our discussions with councillors about the third report was to invite an officer from the DPI to attend an ACGC meeting and discuss the options and issues about potential development with councillors, and the council moved a motion to do so. We then took a back seat and observed that over the next nine months no officer from the DPI attended a council meeting. It is unclear whether this was because of reluctance on the part of the DPI or a lack of pushing on the part of the CEO.

Interestingly, the issue of Creek Camp was back on the agenda as an item at the first ACGC meeting that Sanders and I attended with the new CEO in June 2007. One councillor, who is also a Creek Camp resident, stated that ‘he would like to see power and water connected to Creek Camp’ (ACGC Council minutes, June 2007). This of course was not the first time he had said this, but as noted above, it had not been raised for some time. During our earlier interviews with him, he had made it clear that he sought these essentials, while the issue of housing was not his uppermost priority. However, he had never made so plain a request at any previous council meetings that we had attended.

It is apparent that the issue had lain dormant after our reports had been tabled and that this was not entirely at the discretion of the councillors. Nevertheless, it is pertinent to recall that the ACGC is itself divided and ambivalent as to future development possibilities or options for change at the Creek Camp, and this had not changed over the course of the research. That the new CEO seems to have a slightly different approach to the issue emerged at the same council meeting. She requested an update about possible courses of further action from us and was open to the possibility of formally requesting the attendance of an officer of the DPI to discuss the issue at the following meeting. Time will tell whether a DPI officer attends.

Officers in the DPI report to a different minister than do those in the Department of Local Government.^[11] However, as officers in the DPI were the ones who initially identified the legal and financial obstacles to reticulated service at Creek Camp and then the more ready possibilities, as noted earlier, it would seem that they are pivotal in the process of potential change. When the potential for development under licence or permissive occupancy was reported back as a possible option for Creek Camp in a government forum^[12] at which Sanders presented, he was informed by another DPI officer that in fact it was not necessarily an option. As was noted elsewhere (see Sanders and Holcombe 2007: 85), this was because of a NT Government policy relating to the establishment of any new Aboriginal ‘community living areas’, particularly in towns. This policy shift away from Aboriginal urban living areas, which began in the 1980s, has been brought to prominence recently in relation to ‘town camps’ as ‘reverse apartheid’ by the then Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough.^[13] He raised, as a public issue, the sub-standard living conditions of the 19 town camps in Alice Springs. This policy position, away from the establishment of town camps, is primarily evidenced by the lack of structured government support for them, rather than a publicly declared position. Nevertheless, this somewhat opaque policy cannot so readily explain the historical legacy of government inaction over the Creek Camp.

The role that other officials play (such as those in the Department of Local Government) in this chain of rationality is also relevant. When the issue was raised again by the same councillor/Creek Camp resident at the 2007 May ACGC meeting (with the new CEO), the official noted that ‘due to the fact that Creek Camp was situated on Crown Land [NT] Power and Water Authority would not provide pipes or services to Crown Land due to legal ramifications’. As examined in some detail above, the position detailed by this officer was indeed underwritten by a policy agenda, as much as legal constraints. Yet, the opacity of the policy position suggests that locating it is indeed a challenge, which may explain why the policy position about town camps was not outlined in this public forum.

It seems that the ‘policy’ evolved as a shared understanding amongst public service officers, a number of whom were long serving. This front line rationality was effective and presented as an insurmountable hurdle. Yet, we could not locate any written policy to the effect that leases were no longer being offered for Aboriginal urban living areas within townships. The constraint offered by this policy was able to dominate the discussions and set the parameters of possibilities. As a governmentality, it became authoritative through its common useage. For Foucault, the very activity of governing is conditional on the availability of a certain notion of rationality, which, in order to be operable, needs to be credible to the governed as well as the governing (see Gordon 1991: 48). The credibility of the policy at issue here emerged in the broader milieu of NT Government politics and its intersections with the Federal Government’s recent targeting of ‘town camps’, as discussed above.

Nevertheless, this policy hurdle was really only one element— albeit a key one—in a confluence of factors that include, as mentioned above, a council with diverse views. Another strategic factor is the under resourced CLC who, if they were to push the issue, would be required to take instruction from Traditional Owners (under s. 23 of the ALRA). Preliminary enquiries suggest that at least some Traditional Owners’ interests were not found to lie with the interests of Creek Camp residents. Likewise, post the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), the development of any new Aboriginal urban living area requires negotiation of an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which would include a Crown lease for a living area. Again, the CLC would be a key party to such negotiations, as indeed has occurred in other townships. Furthermore, the fact that the township is surrounded by Aboriginal land (Ahakeye Land Trust), where outstation housing currently lies empty for much of the year, had been noted by the previous CEO.^[14]

It is apparent, nevertheless, that patience in awaiting opportunities may be an Aboriginal political strategy. Is patience perhaps a form of resistance, a weapon of the weak? Or is this an optimistic way of interpreting passivity in the face of a greater political power? Certainly, a commonly heard phrase is that non-Aboriginal people ‘blow in with the west wind and out with the east wind’. Therefore, seizing opportunities to pursue a pre-existing issue of import with a new CEO is standard practice. At any rate, my previous assessment of the lack of action to push for change on the issue as being ‘too hard’ on the part of councillors (see Holcombe and Sanders 2007a)^[15] seems too encompassing on further reflection. It now seems to me that this earlier analysis perhaps underestimated the power relations within the council and the role that policy plays as a rationalising tool of government.

As the councillor raised the Creek Camp issue again, I realised that any set of ‘findings’, and thus analyses, must be bracketed by the research moment. Ultimately, with the re-emergence of the issue by the councillor/Creek Camp resident, it seems to me that if development of the camp is to happen in some form then it is going to have to be driven by a councillor. Persistence by councillors and the active ear of the CEO may yet lead to change.

Geertz (1988: 147) claims that what anthropology should seek to do is ‘enlarge the possibility of intelligible discourse between people quite different from one another in interest, outlook, wealth, and power’. The possibility of this has indeed been enlarged by our research project. However, unfortunately, any discourse has been mediated through our reports, verbal and written. As far as I am aware, no non-Aboriginal government or ACGC official has since visited the Creek Camp to discuss any aspects of the research findings or possibilities for change with residents there.^[16] The research, however, did ‘debunk’ certain preconceptions about the motivations of the residents, so at least the discourse between non-Aboriginal officials about the issue was enlarged by the facts. The analysis clearly demonstrated the diversity of the residents’ aspirations, histories, affiliations and reasons for residing in the camp. Several of the myths concerning the place, as a drinking camp and as a camp dominated by itinerant Warlpiri, have also been found to be false. Likewise, the fact that a significant number of the core residents have an attachment to the place under Aboriginal customary law, while the depth of attachment for many others is historically located through many generations of dwelling in the location, seemed crucial in adding weight to the residents’ rights.