Indigenous Community Governance Project Understanding, Building and Sustaining Effective Governance in Rural, Remote and Urban Indigenous Communities The Anmatjere region of the Northern Territory: People, governance, industry and development   Will Sanders and Sarah Holcombe in collaboration with the Anmatjere Community Government Council and the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (DKCRC) This case study is based in the Anmatjere region of the Northern Territory, located around 200 km north of Alice Springs and focussed on the small roadside town of Ti Tree, which is the main public service centre of the region. The predominantly Aboriginal population is dispersed across the region in four large and a number of smaller discrete Aboriginal living areas. There are also a number of road houses and pastoral homesteads where the residents are predominantly non-Indigenous, plus a horticultural area where grapes and some other fruit and vegetable crops are grown. The organisational focus of the case study is the Anmatjere Community Government Council (ACGC). The ACGC was established in 1994 under the NT Local Government Act. It covers an area of 3,631 km2. This is only about one tenth of the Anmatjere Statistical Local Area identified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, but probably includes about 90 per cent or more of the population of the area. The ACGC area includes the residents of Ti Tree in one of ten electoral wards. It also includes the residents of three adjacent large parcels of land; the western, central and eastern portions of the former Ti Tree Station pastoral lease, which is now Aboriginal freehold land. Beyond this core, ACGC covers the residents of six small parcels of land which are Aboriginal living area excisions on the Aileron, Pine Hill, Alcoota, Napperby, Aningie and Stirling pastoral leases. One of these, Alcoota, is now in Aboriginal ownership and  has been claimed under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The larger areas of these pastoral leases, and their residents, are not part of ACGC.  Each of these ten wards within ACGC is entitled to two representatives on the Council. ACGC is in effect a federation of nine Indigenous living areas and one more mixed population roadside town. Key organisations in the ACGC’s operating environment include: the incorporated associations of some of the constituent communities (such as Laramba and Engawala), which are active in community servicing; CDEP organisations outside the Anmatjere region, which some communities have links with; horticultural operators and road houses, which provide various sorts of servicing, business and employment opportunities; the Central Land Council in Alice Springs, which is charged with representing the interests of Aboriginal traditional owners; and various NT government departments including the Department of Local Government Housing and Sport, which oversees CGCs and is a partner to the research through the DKCRC. The research undertaken to date has included two reports to the ACGC on the issue of the Ti Tree Creek Camp (see link to document below), based on interviews with the residents of Creek Camp, Ti Tree town and Northern Territory Government officials. The next piece of work will be a report to Council to assist them with reviewing their representational structure as required under section 26 of the NT Local Government Act.   Papers arising from this research include: The Ti Tree Creek Camp Study: Reports to Anmatjere Community Government Council', a compilation of three reports, by Will Sanders and Sarah Holcombe (NEW - now includes the Third Report) [975 KB PDF document] Click here to download document. 'Community Government, Association and Municipal Councils in the Northern Territory: Comparing populations and finances', by Will Sanders. [for published version see 'Survey of Indigenous interests and local governments in the Northern Territory', Local Government Reporter, 3 (8): 137-41] [56 Kb PDF document; see also the PowerPoint presentation, 692 Kb PDF document] Click here to download document. 'Anmatjere: Representation in an early regional structure', ICGP Occasional Paper No. 5, by Sarah Holcombe & Will Sanders. [41 Kb PDF document; see also the PowerPoint presentation, 2.1 MB PDF document] Click here to download document.