First published in The Australian

In Harlem, New York, an African-American man who parks his Porsche on the street will get a slap on the back.

Not if you're an Aborigine in Alice Springs, says Darryl Pearce, chief executive of the Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the traditional owners of Alice Springs, the Central Arrernte people. "Drive a Porsche here and someone will key it and snap the aerial off."

Then again, Central Australian Aborigines don't drive Porches, do they? There's a reason for that, apart from overwhelming poverty, Pearce says. Success is seen as treachery.

Pearce says there are two views in Aboriginal affairs. "One is that no Aborigine should ever break through the thin black line, that we should all come up as one and that anybody who wants to be rich and famous is somehow an up-town person."

The other view, which Pearce prefers, is the aspirational model. "One of our young nephews is now flying jumbo jets for Cathay Pacific out of Hong Kong. He grew up here in Alice Springs. People really can make these great leaps. We need to tell blokes it's cool to be successful."

It is a fear of success, of changing an old identity for a new one, that lies behind much of the concern about federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin's announcement on Sunday that she intends to compulsorily acquire the town camps of Alice Springs.

The Tangentyere Council, an organisation that has represented the 15 or so town camps of Alice Springs for three decades, acting as the camps' main service provider, is seen by many to have failed in its job and of failing to move these hellholes into the future.

Last week it refused to sign a final federal government offer of $100 million to upgrade the camps and another $25 million for accompanying health services.

Tangentyere has until June 29 to accept the deal or will find that the camps will be compulsorily acquired. The various camps had already agreed, through Tangentyere, to sign away 40-year leases to the federal Government over town camp land.

This was to give government control of the underlying tenure so it could safeguard the assets it built on top. But Tangentyere did not agree with the Macklin plan to turn the camps into public housing areas to be managed by Territory Housing.

Tangentyere argues it knows the camps best and it wants a company it has formed, the Central Australian Affordable Housing Company, to have key decision-making powers on the camps. Tangentyere has welcomed most parts of the Macklin package and knows that the money would make a big difference, with 100 new houses built and another 100 upgraded. There also would be new curbing, lighting and sewerage installed in an attempt to turn the camps into normal suburbs.

Macklin has said Tangentyere could tender for the management role after a three-year period but insists, for now, Territory Housing must move in, stabilise the atrocious living conditions and manage the tenants, which includes collecting rent from them and evicting them if needs be. Tangentyere has claimed in media statements that it is close to agreement with Macklin, but no negotiations are under way. The money has been on the table, in various forms, since early 2007. Macklin has said no more deadlines; take the offer or leave it.

The camps began to form in the slow and painful fallout of the 1966 Wave Hill station walk-off, when Vincent Lingiari and other Aboriginal stockmen made a stand for equal wages. Station owners couldn't, or wouldn't, pay Aboriginal stockmen. Those in Central Australia began wandering into Alice with their families, looking for work and an education for their children. Most often, they found welfare and the bottle.

By the late '70s they were suffering on the fringes of town. To help them, the camps began to acquire leases and limited services such as running water and tin shacks. There has been little improvement since for the 2000 or so people in the camps.

Some have basic block houses with hot water and power, but people are still living in the 80-odd tin sheds and paying rent to Tangentyere for the privilege.

Tangentyere argues the outward filth in the camps is not the issue. It says it routinely does things that Territory Housing would never do if it took control of the camps, such as ensuring electrics are safe, running vermin control, making sure water is running and installing industrial-strength washing machines in houses. While the housing may be atrocious, Tangentyere points to an independent survey that shows it provides better "healthy living practices" (safe electricity and good water for personal hygiene) than most other national indigenous housing programs. It says Territory Housing will be nothing more than a rent collector.

Tangentyere says governments have starved it of funding and never given it a proper chance. It says neither the federal nor Northern Territory government understands the most common camp problem, of bush people who turn up by the carload looking to drink and party in town. They often bring their feuds with them and occupy camp houses. Tangentyere questions whether Territory Housing will have the contacts and cultural knowledge to work through such problems. It wants Macklin's money, but fears if town campers are forced overnight to become public housing tenants they will face eviction orders and end up back in the riverbed.

"Liquor is free-flowing and far more frequent than it's ever been," Tangentyere chairman William Tilmouth says. "The police are nonexistent, there is no law and order."

He says that is a failing of government, not Tangentyere. Yet there is little sympathy for Tangentyere around Alice Springs, a town heavily propped up by the Aboriginal service industry. Not one other Aboriginal organisation has, to the best of my knowledge, spoken in solidarity for Tangentyere.

It stands accused of maintaining the thin black line, consistently taking a position that it acts with a cultural mandate when all evidence points to a cultural collapse.

For historical reasons, Tangentyere has a deep mistrust of territory governments, which began in Country Liberal times but has crossed over to the more recent era of NT Labor. It prefers to deal with federal governments of any persuasion because it believes they are more accountable on Aborigines and, ultimately, more generous. And Macklin has been generous, upping her original $50 million town-camp transformation plan to $125 million earlier this month.

Though it is Macklin who has carriage of the compulsory acquisition threat, Tangentyere's attacks have been directed at NT Labor. "I would like to meet with (Macklin) and to really sit down and nut this out," Tilmouth says. "I don't think the territory Government, which hides behind her skirt, has the guts to sit down and look at the evidence (of Tangentyere success).

"This is just another way for the territory Government to fill its coffers at the expense of Aboriginal people. It's sad. You have a party that is devoid of any political principles. Aboriginal people have supported the Labor Party through thick and thin and to be deserted is really demoralising."

Tilmouth agrees the camps are deeply flawed but believes creating public housing estates will lead only to further welfare dependency. "We don't want to be forever and a day sitting under the dripping tap of welfare, at the whims of governments that can switch it off and on at their choosing," he says. He believes the proposed CAAHC will lead eventually to private home ownership.

Tangentyere appears to hold a view that the town camps have effectively become Aboriginal land. That deeply aggravates the Central Arrernte people whose heartland is Alice Springs. There is only a handful of camps with Central Arrernte residents and they are turning their backs on Tangentyere. The people of Ilpiye Ilpiye - a clean little camp on the east side of town - have broken away. Resident Cheryl Stirling said this week she was tired of waiting for Tangentyere to assist them. Her uncle, Brian Stirling, says Tangentyere doesn't really support private home ownership for Aborigines and wants to keep them under the Tangentyere thumb.

Pearce says most Central Arrernte people live in their own homes throughout Alice Springs and that the town campers' ties are to other areas across Central Australia. "We don't see a lot of the behaviour as anti-social, we see it as anti-cultural," Pearce says. "If you don't think it's OK to urinate and defecate and sleep on sacred sites in your own country, why is it OK to come to Alice Springs and scream and rant and carry on?"

Lhere Artepe, representing the 1500 to 2000 Central Arrernte people of Alice Springs, won a native title determination in 2000 that has given them strong interests in the town's municipal district. Alice is surrounded by, and entwined with, native title. No move to expand the town can be made without Lhere Artepe's involvement. It is required to be involved in any new land releases and is set to become a very wealthy and powerful organisation.

Lhere Artepe believes that its native title interests have probably been extinguished in most of the town camps because its people have not lived in them for many decades. But in the three or four camps that are home to Central Arrernte, and in other areas across Alice, they propose a different model to that Macklin is offering.

Because they have interests in the land, they would like to convert portions of it to freehold, incorporate them into the Alice Springs town plan, get government to provide headworks (sewers, power, roads) and start on home ownership for their people. They would create estates, fund the building for new housing themselves and become developers. The people would be able to afford to buy houses out of wages or even welfare money.

Lhere Artepe is looking at a much bigger game that will see it become, if it is not already, the main landlord and developer in Alice. "We've broken through," Pearce says. "We are so embedded in Alice that's it's actually a large town with a large number of non-Aboriginal people living on Aboriginal land. You can't describe it any other way. We're not fussed about all this carry-on. We have a different view, a different approach. We're not going to be drawn into models that are not working any more.

"We're just the traditional owners for country. Our view is you can be a Central Arrernte person living anywhere in the world, speaking as many languages as you like, driving a Porsche or Ferrari and wearing Boss and Armani suits, but you'll be able to speak Arrernte, tell stories for country, will be immersed in country and will always come back. That's the modern world.

"We can't practise culture the way we'd like because there's a bloody great town all over our country."

Pearce sees that in 20 or 30 years Alice Springs' population will have grown to 50,000, 70 per cent indigenous. "That will make it a town like nowhere else in the world," he says.

At some point there will be a shuddering correction as Aboriginal service providers - health professionals, bureaucrats, support organisations - slowly disentangle themselves from the industry. Pearce says the Aboriginal service industry is still needed for now. But once people start owning their homes, that industry, and the thin black line that comes with it, will fade away.

"We want to stop using the word housing," he says. "We want homes, safe and sanctuary. We are focused on trying to get people to buy homes. We are in a remarkable position to deliver that."

era of NT Labor. It prefers to deal with federal governments of any persuasion because it believes they are more accountable on Aborigines and, ultimately, more generous. And Macklin has been generous, upping her original $50 million town-camp transformation plan to $125 million earlier this month.

Though it is Macklin who has carriage of the compulsory acquisition threat, Tangentyere's attacks have been directed at NT Labor. "I would like to meet with (Macklin) and to really sit down and nut this out," Tilmouth says. "I don't think the territory Government, which hides behind her skirt, has the guts to sit down and look at the evidence (of Tangentyere success).

"This is just another way for the territory Government to fill its coffers at the expense of Aboriginal people. It's sad. You have a party that is devoid of any political principles. Aboriginal people have supported the Labor Party through thick and thin and to be deserted is really demoralising."

Tilmouth agrees the camps are deeply flawed but believes creating public housing estates will lead only to further welfare dependency. "We don't want to be forever and a day sitting under the dripping tap of welfare, at the whims of governments that can switch it off and on at their choosing," he says. He believes the proposed CAAHC will lead eventually to private home ownership.

Tangentyere appears to hold a view that the town camps have effectively become Aboriginal land. That deeply aggravates the Central Arrernte people whose heartland is Alice Springs. There is only a handful of camps with Central Arrernte residents and they are turning their backs on Tangentyere. The people of Ilpiye Ilpiye - a clean little camp on the east side of town - have broken away. Resident Cheryl Stirling said this week she was tired of waiting for Tangentyere to assist them. Her uncle, Brian Stirling, says Tangentyere doesn't really support private home ownership for Aborigines and wants to keep them under the Tangentyere thumb.

Pearce says most Central Arrernte people live in their own homes throughout Alice Springs and that the town campers' ties are to other areas across Central Australia. "We don't see a lot of the behaviour as anti-social, we see it as anti-cultural," Pearce says. "If you don't think it's OK to urinate and defecate and sleep on sacred sites in your own country, why is it OK to come to Alice Springs and scream and rant and carry on?"

Lhere Artepe, representing the 1500 to 2000 Central Arrernte people of Alice Springs, won a native title determination in 2000 that has given them strong interests in the town's municipal district. Alice is surrounded by, and entwined with, native title. No move to expand the town can be made without Lhere Artepe's involvement. It is required to be involved in any new land releases and is set to become a very wealthy and powerful organisation.

Lhere Artepe believes that its native title interests have probably been extinguished in most of the town camps because its people have not lived in them for many decades. But in the three or four camps that are home to Central Arrernte, and in other areas across Alice, they propose a different model to that Macklin is offering.

Because they have interests in the land, they would like to convert portions of it to freehold, incorporate them into the Alice Springs town plan, get government to provide headworks (sewers, power, roads) and start on home ownership for their people. They would create estates, fund the building for new housing themselves and become developers. The people would be able to afford to buy houses out of wages or even welfare money.

Lhere Artepe is looking at a much bigger game that will see it become, if it is not already, the main landlord and developer in Alice. "We've broken through," Pearce says. "We are so embedded in Alice that's it's actually a large town with a large number of non-Aboriginal people living on Aboriginal land. You can't describe it any other way. We're not fussed about all this carry-on. We have a different view, a different approach. We're not going to be drawn into models that are not working any more.

"We're just the traditional owners for country. Our view is you can be a Central Arrernte person living anywhere in the world, speaking as many languages as you like, driving a Porsche or Ferrari and wearing Boss and Armani suits, but you'll be able to speak Arrernte, tell stories for country, will be immersed in country and will always come back. That's the modern world.

"We can't practise culture the way we'd like because there's a bloody great town all over our country."

Pearce sees that in 20 or 30 years Alice Springs' population will have grown to 50,000, 70 per cent indigenous. "That will make it a town like nowhere else in the world," he says.

At some point there will be a shuddering correction as Aboriginal service providers - health professionals, bureaucrats, support organisations - slowly disentangle themselves from the industry. Pearce says the Aboriginal service industry is still needed for now. But once people start owning their homes, that industry, and the thin black line that comes with it, will fade away.

"We want to stop using the word housing," he says. "We want homes, safe and sanctuary. We are focused on trying to get people to buy homes. We are in a remarkable position to deliver that."