First published in The Australian

KEVIN Rudd has signalled his willingness to change parts of the Howard government's takeover of Northern Territory indigenous communities, after the new territory Chief Minister yesterday demanded he water down the plan, including its tough restrictions on alcohol sales.

On the same day Mr Rudd foreshadowed a formal apology to members of the Stolen Generation, the incoming prime minister said through a spokesman he was open to altering John Howard's unprecedented intervention.

These include reintroducing the controversial permit system, which regulates non-indigenous access to communities, and modifying rather than scrapping the Community Development Employment Projects work-for-the-dole scheme.

While stressing his commitment to the thrust of the takeover, Mr Rudd said he was happy to negotiate with the NT Government on alcohol restrictions after the expiry of the six-month limit placed on the intervention by Mr Howard.

In July, Mr Howard called in the army to take over NT indigenous communities in response to a report to the Territory Government highlighting rampant sexual and physical abuse of indigenous children, fuelled by easy access to hard core pornography and high levels of alcohol abuse.

Labor supported the intervention and the ban on alcohol in indigenous communities, although it sought to amend the ban on the permit system, expressing fears it could open the door to pedophiles intending to prey on indigenous children.

Incoming NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson, appointed after the surprise retirement of Clare Martin, yesterday called for an easing of conditions requiring NT residents to provide their name and address if they buy more than $100 worth of takeaway alcohol, and the reinstatement of the permit system and the CDEP scheme.

Despite former indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough pleading for the new Labor government to stick by the program, Mr Rudd said through a spokesman he was open to change.

Mr Brough, who lost his Queensland seat of Longman on Saturday, always doubted Labor's long-term commitment to the intervention.

Mr Rudd's spokesman said last night that although Labor supported the intervention and planned to continue with its implementation, the party had always made it clear it had reservations about the abolition of the permit system.

"Federal Labor moved amendments in the federal parliament in relation to permits, based on concerns expressed by the Northern Territory Police Federation," Mr Rudd's spokesman said.

"Federal Labor has made it clear we believe a reformed and significantly improved CDEP scheme is the best way to deliver economic independence to indigenous Australians."

The spokesman also said Labor continued to back the alcohol restrictions.

"The Howard government made it clear that the current alcohol restrictions would only apply for six months," he said.

"At the conclusion of this six-month period, federal Labor looks forward to working with the Northern Territory Government to implement workable and long-term laws."

Mr Henderson, who has been in contact with Mr Rudd's office, said his new government wanted to work with the new prime minister in a constructive manner.

"We have to work together to overcome the overwhelming social and economic disadvantage of so many of our indigenous Territorians," Mr Henderson said. "The Territory's history is littered with good intentions from Canberra."

Earlier, Mr Rudd said at Scarborough, north of Brisbane, he would begin work soon on the promised apology to the Stolen Generation of indigenous people removed from their parents as children.

"We would frame it in a consultative fashion with communities and that may take some time," he said.

He committed to ensuring the apology would come early within his three-year term of government.

Mr Rudd has signalled, however, that he may not use his first term to pursue Mr Howard's planned referendum on including a recognition of Aboriginal Australians in the Constitution.

Mr Brough told The Australian yesterday he had planned to "go a lot further" with the intervention by placing a police officer in every indigenous community in the Territory.

"It is not acceptable to say police will be in one central position; they have to be on the ground in the communities," Mr Brough said.

"The incoming government needs to have a dispersal of police resources and that is what the communities are crying out for. There is still alcohol and drugs coming into the communities and if there is no police presence, you won't stop it. No schooling or anything else happens if there is a drunken mellee day in, day out."

Indigenous leader and former ALP national president Warren Mundine scoffed at suggestions that the Rudd government would re-introduce the CDEP scheme. "That is not work. You cannot have people sitting around doing nothing," Mr Mundine said. "We are looking at a CDEP-type project where people work for the money they receive, not get handouts."

His comments were echoed by Sue Gordon, chair of the Northern Territory intervention taskforce, who pleaded with Labor to get rid of CDEP.

Dr Gordon said that although the abolition of CDEP, and the wider intervention, might have happened too quickly, it was necessary to get rid of the scheme, which she described as a form of "apartheid".