And the Rudd Government wonders why its reputation is in tatters....

On 20 May 2010 the NT News reported:

LABOR backbencher Marion Scrymgour has once again spoken out against her own party's policy by attacking a decision to continue welfare quarantining.
Ms Scrymgour criticised Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin's dismissal of a recent report that revealed income management was not working.
Chief Minister Paul Henderson this week backed the Commonwealth's decision but said the report by the Menzies School of Health Research needed to be examined.
But Ms Scrymgour lashed out at the Federal Government by making an online post on the Crikey website.
She said the Menzies report was based on "concrete sales data", but the Commonwealth was relying on its own "subjective anecdotal" study.
"It is time to revisit the hype and spin that prevailed back in mid-2007 when this measure was introduced," she said.
"To its great discredit, the Commonwealth Government has maintained the destructive combination of universal income management and the winding down of CDEP, asserting all the while that it sought to act on the basis of 'evidence'."
"The evidence compiled in the Menzies report speaks for itself."
Mr Henderson said Ms Scrymgour was "entitled to her view".

This very public spat was based on the finding of the Menzies Report which was published in the Medical Journal of Australia as Impact of income management on store sales in the Northern Territory.

The Australian Medical Association alerted the media in a press release:
Income management, introduced as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Response in remote Northern Territory communities in 2007, has had no beneficial effect on tobacco and cigarette sales, soft drink or fruit and vegetable sales, according to research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Then Crikey followed up with The Government campaign against researchers who dared question income management on 11 June 2010 and then reported on an incredible piece of government spin on the basic card issue.

This spin included a 16 May 2010 media release from the Minister's office which addressed reducing sugar consumption in indigenous communities as its principal response to the research findings. However this particular release appears to have disappeared from the Internet and only this response from Jenny Macklin survives on the FaHCSIA website.

Now the original document exchange in this disagreement is on record:

The FaHCSIA Critique of the Menzies Report
Response from the Menzies researchers