A speech by the Northern Territory Minister for Community Services, Mr. John Ah Kit, in which he claimed “it is almost impossible to find a functional Aboriginal community anywhere in the Northern Territory”, has caused some controversy in recent days.
In his speech to the Northern Territory Parliament, Ah Kit said: “I am talking of the dysfunction that is endemic through virtually all of our communities, both in towns and the bush. We cannot pretend that a community is functional when half the kids don’t go to school because they have been up most of the night coping with drunken parents, or because they themselves have been up all night sniffing petrol.
