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The first twelve months of the federal government's new arrangements for the administration of Indigenous affairs has ended. The primary focus of this period has been on abolishing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and creating new processes to engage with local Indigenous communities and coordinate mainstream delivery of services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Twelve months on, the new arrangements remain in a transitional phase. It will be a number of years before they are fully locked into place.

After 11 years of conservative rule under the Howard Government, that saw Indigenous peoples’ native title rights and interests severely degraded under the Wik 10 Point Plan, the election of the Labor Government raised an opportunity to renew the relationship between the State and Australia’s Indigenous peoples.

Catholic Welfare Australia is a Commission of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference and is the peak body that represents the social welfare apostolate of the Catholic Church in Australia at a national level. It is a national federation of Catholic social service organisations that operate in local communities. Membership of Catholic Welfare Australia is drawn from the Catholic social welfare organisations operating under the authority of a diocesan bishop or a religious order and from Catholic lay associations.

Australian and international experts will gather at a two-day conference to be held in Melbourne this week to consider the subject of the trafficking of women into Australia for the purposes of prostitution. The timing of this event could hardly be better, following so closely as it does on the major package of counter-trafficking measures announced by the Australian Government only last week.