The next morning, there was a crowd of perhaps 200 outside the Council Chambers, most of them Indigenous men, women, and children, but a few white people. I saw Dave and Doug on the outskirts of the crowd. Three uniformed police stood together on the fringe of the gathering. There was a microphone on the steps of the Council Chambers.
The first speaker, introduced as a member of the Kimberley Aboriginal Council, was a fiery young man with all the rhetoric of a practiced performer. He described the government scheme as catastrophic. ‘There’s been no consultation,’ he shouted into the crackling microphone, ‘just threats. No one knows if their communities are targeted. This is about our identity!’ he bellowed to loud applause. ‘The government wants to take it away. If they close our communit
