ABSTRACT
A new kind of progressive public servant derided the pastoral industry's protests as redneck reactions, while the betrayal of previous promises to Aboriginal people was not recognised at all. The shift away from assimilation towards self-determination meant that the focus of bureaucratic attention moved to the 'tribal' or 'outback' people who lived in 'communities', and away from those Aborigines who had already fitted in with urban structures by adopting nuclear family households. The subsequent era of race relations is replete with ambiguities and contradictions, with desire and dismay, myopia and unintended consequences. Thus the unrecognised and unintended betrayal of blackfellas lay, not primarily in the break with the stability of the past, but in the confusion and misunderstanding inherent in the conception of 'self-determination'. The Mainoru mob now became the Bulman mob and gradually became the focus of more attention.
