John Taylor's publication, 'Social Indicators for Aboriginal Governance', ......... the issue of how and whether current social and economic conditions in remote regions can be quantified to establish a baseline against which the impacts of policies might be measured.

Two recent policy ......... (one from the Council of Australian Governments, and one from the Northern Territory Government) raise the need for such a question.

Writing in 1971 on the ......... of change from the assimilationist years of welfare administration to the era of Indigenous self-management, Charles Rowley described the myriad mission and government settlements across remote Australia as instrumental in frustrating urbanisation.

With the benefit of more than 30 years' hindsight, during which time Indigenous people have been free from the institutional and legislative ......... that governed their place of residence, Rowley's proposition is only partially upheld.

The more striking and profound observation concerning Indigenous population distribution concerns the growth in size of remote Aboriginal towns ......... the increased dispersion of Aboriginal population to outstations on Aboriginal lands.

Some contemporary opinion would ......... this continuity of Indigenous rural settlement, seeking the means to socially engineer migration to urban areas.

It is interesting to compare such views with the current activities of Federal, State, and Territory governments, which appear increasingly prepared to respond to the reality of a growing Indigenous population in remote areas by seeking ways to enhance life chances and life quality in ..........

Such efforts are in line ......... a growing search for more efficient regionalism in Indigenous community governance.

This study takes its ......... from these policy directions.

Taylor closes with a note on cultural ........., questioning whether the information obtained from an instrument such as census data, principally designed to establish the characteristics of mainstream Australian life, is in fact valid in this region.