ABSTRACT
In both countries present day policies affecting aboriginal development reflect a history of changing attitudes, including colonialist and assimilationist views and more recent acceptance of the need for aboriginal self-determination coupled with greater economic self-sufficiency and community-based development. In general, as Cant's recent (1993) comparative overview of the basis for land rights movements and development in Canada, Australia and New Zealand sets out, there has been marked progress in the movement from assimilation to self-determination since the late 1960s. However the transition has not been smooth. Many Canadians and Australians still openly espouse the cause of assimilation and condemn government for supporting aboriginal cultural and social development, and for making any special concessions to processes to overcome aboriginal economic disadvantage. They take the attitude that those who cannot or will not join the mainstream do not deserve to survive. Such views are also common with those involved in government, both among the politicians and amongst the bureaucrats. In Australia, for
rather than on development. Local self-government at community level was seen as the prime method of reversing DIAND's 'top-down' development approach.
