Mal monstered at Mutitjulu - any wonder?

They want to determine for themselves how they will live. And they want to protect and nurture a culture which has served them well for more than 40,000 years.

The outpouring of anger at Mutitjulu reflects widespread disappointment at the federal government's manipulative approach to the problems of remote communities.

Mutitjulu has been under sustained attack from the Howard Government for some months now.

The community will go to court this week to challenge the government's decision to impose a Perth-based administrator on them.

Last week the federal police arrived at Mutitjulu with search warrants, and turned over the home and office of Dorethea Randall, the community's acting chief executive office, seizing her computer hard-drive.

An unusually coy Minister Brough had no comment to make about what he has described as “operational police matters”.

Perhaps then, the Attorney General could take a break from offering bodgy legal advice on the Noongar native title decision and explain why it was necessary to raid Mutitjulu just before the community goes to court.

If Brough's name is mud in Mutitjulu, the good citizens of Wadeye are also experiencing a growing reluctance to roll out the welcome mat.

The emaciated body of the Wadeye COAG trial has been cryogenically frozen, so that the government doesn't have to admit that the patient has died - and risk a politically damaging public funeral.

They certainly wouldn't want a coroner's report, given the demonstrated capacity of these public officials to report precisely and unflinchingly on the circumstances that surround untimely deaths.

The courage demonstrated by Queensland's Deputy State Coroner, Christine Clements, in handing down her findings on the Palm Island death-in-custody was a high-water mark in Indigenous justice.

But Mutitjulu and Wadeye are not the only places where the minister is likely to meet with hostility.

Brough can expect to be abused in Areyonga, blasted in Beswick and castigated in Camooweal. They'll jeer in Jigalong, frown in Framlingham, and heckle in Hermannsburg.

Aboriginal people living in the bush are not the same as the whitefellas that cling to the eastern seaboard of this country. But they too have hopes, fears and expectations.

They are not “better” or “worse” than the residents of Sydney or Melbourne - just different. And every bit as real.