The Rudd Government endores the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while problems persist

First the Rudd Government formally said sorry to the Stolen Generation and now it has endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin delivered a statement in support of the document at Parliament House this morning, saying that the move was a step forward in "re-setting" the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
"The Declaration gives us new impetus to work together in trust and good faith to advance human rights and close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians," Ms Macklin said.
"The Declaration recognises the legitimate entitlement of Indigenous peoples to all human rights – based on principles of equality, partnership, good faith and mutual benefit."

However, this is the true state of affairs according to the National Indigenous Times:

NATIONAL, April 7, 2009: Residents of remote Aboriginal communities are routinely being sold rotten and overpriced food, an inquiry has heard.
A federal parliamentary inquiry into community stores has also heard a Queensland government-run store in the Torres Strait was infested with rats.
Distressed residents told the inquiry the infestation at the IBIS store at Moa Island had reached plague proportions, while a store representative admitted there was rodent problem.
"Many of the stores we heard about and some of the stores we saw were not up to scratch and that's got to have an effect," Labor MP and head of the inquiry Richard Marles said.
Mr Marles, who spent last week touring communities in the Torres Strait and Cape York, said residents across the region claimed food at their local store was rotten or out of date.
"There was a repeated sense that a lot of product was out of date, there was some evidence that the use-by date had been textaed over - that was certainly a repeated theme among those who were giving evidence before us," he said.
The inquiry has also received an anonymous submission from a Northern Territory nurse who expressed dismay at the quality and price of goods in her local store.
"The cucumber I bought was mostly rotten. Of the 1kg bag of tomatoes three were rotten, the sour cream went out of date six weeks ago, the avocado was black all through ... and a package of a red onion, a tomato and a lettuce cost $11," she said.

ISSUE 174, April 2, 2009:.........With the election of Labor, there was some optimism that there might be major changes to the scope and nature of the intervention. The political analysis was that Labor had deliberately kept themselves as a small target over the intervention, and that there would be a significant shift in policy and emphasis over the intervention post-election.
However, apart from some cosmetic changes to CDEP and the permit system - which have yet to be enacted - the new government decided to keep the intervention rolling.

A mounting case of intervention failure

UN tells Rudd to 'redesign' NT intervention

Graphic from the National Indigenous Times