It was a perplexed, polarised but ultimately calmed Maningrida community that bade farewell to the government’s intervention taskforce of Dr Sue Gordon and Major General David Chalmers yesterday afternoon, with most of the division settling in along cultural lines.

Magistrate Sue Gordon (herself a child of the stolen generation) placated local fears with her own story of being removed from her parents as a five year old. She was able to guarantee that removal of children was not part of the government’s plans. Dr Gordon’s diplomatic skills reassured the local indigenous women. Her easy empathy but commanding demeanour was instantly attractive and eased the minds of many.

At an evening BBQ with women’s night patrol and child protection workers on Monday, Gordon heard praise for the government’s plans to commandeer up to 50% of welfare payments for food and other essential items if children don’t turn up for school.

Yet people weren’t praising the move because they recognised the need to get their kids to school, but because mothers were sick of being left with no money for food after husbands or older male relatives had demanded (and as is custom, received) the fortnightly child payment. Living off 50% or less of a Centrelink payment leaves many of these families very vulnerable indeed.

The removal of the land access permits has been a key concern of indigenous people around the Territory, but the WA magistrate dismissed these concerns on the mystifying grounds that they hadn’t protected indigenous children — despite never having been intended to do so.

Surprisingly, a planned, open public meeting in the community was also abandoned. It was clear, however, that Dr Gordon had no interest in listening to the community’s non-indigenous residents.

Most of the balandas (whitefellas) Dr Gordon and Maj Gen Chalmers met were high level employees of indigenous organisations and government departments who would more than likely be administering the “intervention”. But people I spoke to who had attended the meetings felt they were thought of as obstructionists. Few felt their questions had been adequately answered.

It was an interesting insight into what many remote indigenous people must have felt at government meetings over the last 30 years.

Unfortunately, reality may ram a couple of sticks into the front spokes of the taskforce’s plans — namely an acute lack of education, experience, desire for full-time employment and the singular ability of remote indigenous people to be incredibly welcoming and supportive of yet another government initiative that they have little interest in once the details emerge.

Meanwhile, there still seems to be almost no actual plan to curb child s-xual abuse, which was the point of the whole exercise, wasn’t it?