This book is a personal document. In form it is a selection of essays I have written for various occasions since 1978 about issues central to the autonomy of Aboriginal Australians and continues the record of my involvement with those issues after the publication of Kulinma in that year. That book carried the sub-title, Listening to Aboriginal Australians. One of my critics in the bureaucratic conflicts over Aboriginal affairs policies of the time was heard to remark, ‘It sounds more like Nugget listening to himself talk about Aborigines’. There was some point in the criticism and it could be repeated in relation to this volume also.

Neither book has authority to speak for Aborigines, nor is it a record of views sponsored by them. It presents my own thoughts as they developed on issues and as they were confronted by Aborigines and Australian society. They are the thoughts of a white Australian of Celtic origin, educated and trained initially as a teacher and progressively as an economist, central banker, public servant and academic. One who came late, almost by accident, to a position of responsibility affecting Aborigines and whose knowledge of Aboriginal people has been derived primarily from the work of professional anthropologists and other writers with experience of them. Fortunately, that knowledge has been supplemented and developed by personal contact and experience with Aboriginal men and women in their groups and communities over 25 years of fairly frequent visits and other forms of communication.