Opinion & Commentary by Author

1. Poor education is letting Indigenous children down

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 06 Jul 2012 | The Drum

   NAPLAN results show that Queensland has made the greatest progress in reducing failure rates, followed by Western Australia,... Read More

2. Review of indigenous literacy and numeracy 2008-2011

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 28 Jun 2012 | ON LINE Opinion

   Queensland and Western Australia are the only states making progress on Indigenous education.

3. Hughes: Neither race nor distance

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 27 Jun 2012 | The Advertiser

   THE causes of high indigenous failure are poor teaching and discipline, write Helen and Mark Hughes.

4. 'Indigenous-specific' programs are a $300m waste

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 27 Jun 2012 | The Australian

   Queensland and Western Australia are the only states making progress on indigenous education.

5. WA can do more in indigenous education

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 27 Jun 2012 | The West Australian

   WA is on its way to reducing indigenous literacy and numeracy failure rates, which will increase opportunities for indigenous... Read More

6. End the cargo-cult aid mentality that has ruined our neighbours

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 16 Apr 2012 | The Australian

   Pacific elites have appropriated the bulk of aid, mineral, forestry and other incomes to become immensely wealthy at the... Read More

7. Remote disadvantage even worse than reported

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 27 Sep 2011 | The Australian

   Billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted on programs that mostly benefit bureaucrats IN February, the Productivity Commission... Read More

8. Lands where no one can feel at home

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes, Sara Hudson | 25 Jun 2011 | The Australian

   Indigenous ‘community’ a misnomer.

9. The Fiji meeting would be a farce if it were funny

   Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 30 Mar 2011 | The Canberra Times

   ‘Melanesia’ is an anthropologists’ construct that has no economic and little other sense. It the arcane world of United... Read More

10. Fat cats feed on needy

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 23 Mar 2011 | The Australian

    If government expenditure on indigenous Australians is divided among the welfare-dependent, the average per head is $75,000.

11. Protecting bad teachers produces chronic failure

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013, Mark Hughes | 09 Mar 2011 | The Australian

    My School confirms that funding is not the cause of Indigenous educational failure.

12. Land rights must come first

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 Nov 2010 | Spectator Australia

    Private property rights are the foundation for self-sustaining Indigenous businesses.

13. Ownership would transform Aboriginal towns

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 24 Nov 2010 | The Canberra Times

    The denial of private property rights to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders on indigenous lands continues to cause extremes... Read More

14. Home ownership key to ending dysfunction

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 17 Nov 2010 | The Australian

    Indigenous Australians are being denied their right to own the house they live in.

15. Helen Hughes opens her diary

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 31 Jul 2010 | The Spectator (Australia)

    Helen Hughes writes the Diary for Spectator Australia about her trip to Cape York, 31 July 2010.

16. What a difference a decade doesn't make to the lives of Pacific Islanders

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 12 Jun 2010 | The Australian

    Ten years after the UN pledged to address poverty and poor health and education levels in the Pacific region, the shameful... Read More

17. NAPLAN tests show the Indigenous gap

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 11 May 2010 | The Newcastle Herald

    NAPLAN results show just how behind the mainstream remote students are, says Helen Hughes and Mark Hughes in The Newcastle... Read More

18. Education fails indigenous kids

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 29 Apr 2010 | The Australian

    NAPLAN results show just how behind the mainstream remote students are, says Helen Hughes and Mark Hughes in The Australian,... Read More

19. Indigenous students from welfare-dependent families perform poorly

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 10 Apr 2010 | Adelaide Now

    South Australia has some of the most disadvantaged remote Aboriginal communities and some of the lowest indigenous employment.

20. Hard facts hit home on Indigenous jobs

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 09 Mar 2010 | The Newcastle Herald

    Although remote indigenous communities in the far north have the worst living standards in Australia, there are low indigenous... Read More

21. Army of well-paid advisers keep Pacific poor

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 22 Feb 2010 | The Australian

    Poorly targeted aid to the Pacific hinders rather than helps the region.

22. Authorities must not wag school

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 16 Oct 2009 | The Australian

    The just released National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results for this year confirm the Northern... Read More

23. Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage 2009

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 08 Jul 2009

    The Commonwealth government hoped for favourable coverage from the release of the Productivity Commission’s Overcoming... Read More

24. Who are Indigenous Australians?

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 13 Jun 2009 | NZCPR

    In 1967 Australians overwhelmingly supported a referendum that altered the Australian constitution in regard to Aborigines... Read More

25. Commonwealth government fails remote Indigenous students

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 May 2009

    The second round of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests took place this week. Australia... Read More

26. Making remote schools work will take commitment

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 11 Apr 2009 | The Australian

    Indigenous illiteracy and non-numeracy has been recognised as a problem in Australia for more than 20 years. But government... Read More

27. Has Indigenous Education Been Shortchanged Again?

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 06 Mar 2009 | The Australian

    The minister for education’s plan to fund two hundred additional teachers with $100 million of support is a commendable... Read More

28. School litany of shame

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 14 Dec 2008

    With the May 2009 national literacy and numeracy tests only six months away, it is not too soon to focus on the reasons why... Read More

29. Numbers don't go remotely to issue

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 28 Nov 2008 | The Australian

    The news that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found the 17 year gap in the life expectancy between Indigenous and... Read More

30. The Northern Territory's performance in national literacy and numeracy testing

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 17 Sep 2008 | The Australian

    When we drew attention to the failures of Northern Territory schooling in April this year, our report Indigenous Education... Read More

31. Guest workers and the Northern Territory

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 14 Sep 2008 | The Sunday Territorian

    To Australia’s embarrassment, by not tackling the problems that prevent Aborigines picking the fruit that is now ripening... Read More

32. Major General Jeffrey and aborigines in the open society

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 08 Sep 2008 | The Australian

    Major General Jeffery is to be congratulated for drawing attention, on his last day as Governor General of Australia, to... Read More

33. Pacific guests invited over our unemployed

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 21 Aug 2008 | The Newcastle Herald

    The announcement that Australia is inaugurating a ‘guest worker’ scheme for Pacific islanders to pick fruit in Australia... Read More

34. Good policy better than guest work for neighbours

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 21 Aug 2008 | The Canberra Times

    The announcement that Australia is inaugurating a ‘guest worker’ scheme for Pacific islanders to pick fruit in Australia... Read More

35. Fruit picking jobs for local aborigines or guest workers from the Pacific?

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 18 Aug 2008 | The Courier Mail

    Growers' struggles to get fruit and vegetables picked and processed have led the Australian Farmers’ Federation to campaign... Read More

36. Governments are failing East Arnhem Land

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 Jul 2008 | The Weekend Australian

    Kevin Rudd’s ‘Community Cabinet Meeting’ in Yirrkala unfortunately did not tackle the failures of public policy in... Read More

37. The three 'R's of Northern Territory Indigenous education: responsibility, reform and 'rithmetic

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 06 May 2008 | The Australian

    Ms Scrymgour, the Northern Territory Minister for Education, is to be congratulated for taking responsibility for the crisis... Read More

38. Policy reform to close the gap between black and white

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 Apr 2008 | The Australian Financial Review

    After some 200 years of discrimination, the basic principles that must inform policies that affect Indigenous Australians... Read More

39. Northern Territory Indigenous Education

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 07 Apr 2008 | The Australian

    The Northern Territory Department of Education reported in 2006-2007 that reading and numeracy Year 3, 5 and 7 benchmark... Read More

40. Failures in education policy are creating a lost generation

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 07 Apr 2008 | ABC News Online

    The Northern Territory has known for more than a decade that Indigenous students are completing its Aboriginal schools (Learning... Read More

41. Pretend Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Northern Territory

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 03 Mar 2008 | The Canberra Times

    The Northern Territory Department of Education reports that only 20% of Indigenous students in remote schools pass year 3... Read More

42. Strangers in their own land – An extract

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 27 Feb 2008 | The Australian

    Two teenager girls from East Arnhem Land undergo a ten-week educational marathon in Sydney with Helen Hughes to help them... Read More

43. Tough love key to Nauru's future

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 22 Jan 2008 | The Australian

    The Rudd Government has an unparalleled opportunity to make a contribution to the evolution of real solutions for small Pacific... Read More

44. Long-term welfare dependency is of no real benefit to recipients

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 11 Jan 2008 | The Australian

    For a liberal, turning a share of welfare payments into vouchers for groceries and rent is not a happy solution. A safety... Read More

45. Native titles in private housing

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 Oct 2007 | The Canberra Times

    The 2006 Census suggests that some 295,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders - perhaps 45,000 Indigenous families -... Read More

46. Indigenous housing

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 Oct 2007

    The 2006 Census suggests that some 295,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders - perhaps 45,000 Indigenous families -... Read More

47. Life after kava needs education, real jobs

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 14 Oct 2007 | The Sunday Territorian

    As part of the Northern Territory ‘emergency intervention’, the Australian Government announced a ban on the import of... Read More

48. Aboriginal artists in the remote 'homelands' downtrodden by too much aid

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 19 Sep 2007 | The Canberra Times

    The director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University, Professor Jon Altman,... Read More

49. Extend a hand to an absent friend

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 04 Sep 2007 | The Australian

    Although Sydney loves a party and gave world winners for the 2000 Olympics and the 2003 World Rugby Cup, the response to... Read More

50. South Australia's "homelands" have only a small proportion of Australia's 500,000 Aborigines...

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 02 Jun 2007 | The Adelaide Advertiser

    South Australian "homelands" have only a very small proportion of Australia's 500,000 Aborigines, but they include some of... Read More

51. Our state of disgrace

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 31 May 2007 | The Courier Mail

    Queensland, with a quarter of Australia's Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, has some of their most dysfunctional settlements.

52. Helen Hughes writes on Lands of Shame

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 May 2007 | The Australian Financial Review

    The pernicious permit system that censors reporting about remote ‘homelands’ has been sufficiently broken into to make... Read More

53. An edited extract from Lands of Shame

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 May 2007 | The Weekend Enquirer

    After the passage of the 1967 referendum, and with the beginning of the transfer of land to Aborigines and Torres Strait... Read More

54. An extract from Lands of Shame

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 22 May 2007 | The Canberra Times

    About a third of Australia's 500,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders work in mainstream jobs, own their houses and... Read More

55. Palmed off and abused

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 08 Jan 2007 | The Courier Mail

    The concerns aroused by the Mulrunji case are a long-overdue reaction to failures of policing and jurisprudence towards Aborigines... Read More

56. Aid no place for preaching pop stars

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 20 Nov 2006 | The Australian

    Young people are understandably concerned that 50 years into the most rapid improvements in living standards that the world... Read More

57. Aboriginal separatist policies must be dropped

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 20 Nov 2006 | The Canberra Times

    The Academy of Social Science is holding its annual symposium on social issues on the geographic mobility that has enriched... Read More

58. Funding for indigenous communities still not finding targets

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 20 Oct 2006 | The Canberra Times

    The funding intended to help Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders does not reach most of them. Abysmal overcrowding in... Read More

59. Why is Northern Queensland Calling for Fruit Pickers from the Pacific Islands?

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 12 Oct 2006 | The Courier Mail

    Last week the Cairns Post drew attention to the failure of backpackers to follow their usual fruit picking trail from Bowen... Read More

60. The causes of upheavals in the Solomon Islands

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 Sep 2006 | The Australian

    Trouble in Timor Leste (one million) and the Solomons (450,000) is not coincidental, It has been brewing since the Australian... Read More

61. Aid for growth only hope for a Pacific solution

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 01 May 2006 | The Australian

    The emphasis on growth in Alexander Downer's white paper is a victory in the struggle to save Australian taxpayers' hard-earned... Read More

62. Speaking with spirits: Papua New Guinea’s logging free-for-all

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 26 Apr 2006 | The Canberra Times

    In May 2005 Papua New Guinea refused a $23 million World Bank loan designed to reduce the depredations of timber exporters... Read More

63. US aid group throws Vanuatu's privileged political elite a lifeline

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 07 Mar 2006 | The Canberra Times

    Vanuatu (population 200,000) has been generously supported by aid in cash and technical assistance since its independence... Read More

64. Policies entrench poverty

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 23 Sep 2005 | The Australian

    More than 200,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have become integrated into mainstream Australian life, but during... Read More

65. Pacific aid policy must indeed be based on facts

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 11 Aug 2005 | The Canberra Times

    Australia is the leading aid donor in the Pacific, taking its responsibility to its neighbours seriously. Three years ago... Read More

66. Lies and Statistics

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 09 Jul 2005 | The Australian Financial Review

    The debt of poor African governments has three components: debt owed to commercial banks and capital goods suppliers, debt... Read More

67. Time for real economics to cure Africa's plight

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 29 Jun 2005 | The Dominion Post

    Bob Geldof is not only hoping for a large attendance at his Live 8 concert on July 2, but expecting a march of thousands... Read More

68. Rockers deaf to aid realities

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 28 Jun 2005 | The Australian

    It is 20 years since Bob Geldof organised the Live Aid concerts to feed the hungry of Africa . It is five years since the... Read More

69. Economic malaise in PNG is deep, and growing steadily

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 06 Jun 2005 | The Canberra Times

    The recent ruling by the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court that the immunity essential for Australian police operations in Papua... Read More

70. Nose cut off to spite the face

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 31 May 2005 | The Courier Mail

    The withdrawal of the Australian police, following the Papua New Guinean Supreme Court ruling that the immunity essential... Read More

71. Coombs' tragic legacy

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 01 Mar 2005 | The Australian Financial Review

    In reviewing the Community Development Employment Program the federal government has hopefully taken a first step toward... Read More

72. New deal for communities

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 01 Mar 2005 | The Courier Mail

    Third World unemployment, welfare dependence, housing, ill health and violence in remote communities contrast starkly with... Read More

73. More aid is no solution for Islands

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 29 Dec 2004 | The New Zealand Herald

    Australians and New Zealanders pride themselves on giving the Pacific a helping hand. Yet the Pacific economies have not... Read More

74. Ripples of change surfacing in a stagnant Pacific

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 02 Dec 2004 | The Sydney Morning Herald

    Income has barely grown faster than population in the Pacific for the 30th consecutive year, despite $1.5 billion of aid.... Read More

75. Fortune lost to betrayal

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 22 Oct 2004 | The Australian

    The older ones among you will remember my first arrival in Nauru in 1963 after I had negotiated for you the world price for... Read More

76. Only harsh medicine can save Nauru

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 31 Aug 2004 | The Courier Mail

    Nauru is an isolated 21 sq km Pacific island, more than 3,500 kms from Brisbane. In 1963, while still administered by Australia,... Read More

77. Sick phosphate island in need of a remedy

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 20 Aug 2004 | The Courier Mail

    Nauru is a 21 sq kms island near the equator, more than 3,000 kms from Brisbane. Its population, now 11,000, had the second... Read More

78. An end to benign neglect

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 Jul 2004 | The Australian

    Increasing aid to Papua New Guinea to more than $425 million for 2004-05 will enable more than 260 police and other law and... Read More

79. Only internal reform can rescue a stagnant PNG

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 Jul 2004 | The Canberra Times

    Papua New Guinea's GDP growth, with good weather and high mineral export prices, is still only barely above population growth,... Read More

80. Pacific states stagnate

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 01 Jul 2004

    Nearly all the Southwest Pacific islands have recorded another year of per capita income decline in 2003. The exceptions... Read More

81. Game of Pacific cop and dodgers

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 01 Jul 2003 | The Australian

    The Howard Government's decision to help the Solomons by restoring civil order to the South Pacific islands is welcome.

82. Faulty index poor guide to real benefits

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 20 May 2003 | The Australian Financial Review

    Measuring a country's commitment to aid and development can be a flawed process.

83. Way out for poor little rich island

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 08 Apr 2003 | The Australian

    Nauru - an island of 22sq km, lying near the Equator, thousands of kilometres from the nearest large Pacific island group... Read More

84. Lies and statistics

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 04 Nov 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Surjit Bhalla's book Imagine There's No Country has created a furore in Washington by convincingly demonstrating that the... Read More

85. PNG in need for much more than money

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 14 Aug 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Papua New Guinea has become a dysfunctional state.  Per capita income is falling, public services are non existent and robbery,... Read More

86. The poor need trade, not aid

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 22 Jun 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Australia is not alone in its 'asylum seeker' problems. 'Asylum seekers' are putting pressures on liberal democracies world-wide,... Read More

87. Poor Approach to the Economy: Claims that poverty is growing in Australia are built on shifting sands

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 17 Jun 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Does Australia have an increasing poverty problem or not? The Centre for Independent Studies' Policy (Winter 2001) a year... Read More

88. Third World aid: is it part of the solution or the problem?

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 11 May 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Heads of government and ministers met at the United Nations headquarters in New York during the week to try to answer the... Read More

89. A tale of two refugees

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 10 May 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Two refugees from fascism, each of whom made an outstanding contribution to the development of economics and hence to the... Read More

90. Foreign aid offers a poor policy: The world bank helps those who help themselves to the cash

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 27 Mar 2002 | The Australian

    The aid industry, led by the World Bank, met last week in Monterrey, Mexico, to drum up financial support for international... Read More

91. Loud mobs hold democracy hostage

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 01 Mar 2002 | The Australian

    The build-up of demonstrations since the 1999 World Trade Organisation debacle in Seattle has a deja vu feeling for anyone... Read More

92. Risk of being burnt in the melting pot: There are costs to a society in taking in more asylum seekers

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 04 Jan 2002 | The Australian Financial Review

    Asylum seekers have become, in parallel with terrorism and consequent on it, the first major crisis of the 21st century.... Read More

93. What future exists for Afghanistan? Any solution must address the drug trade and the plight of women

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 30 Nov 2001 | The Australian Financial Review

    The lands of central Asia have a sorry history of warfare, dating back to the times of the “silk road” linking Europe... Read More

94. Why multicultural Australia is less welcome

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 29 Nov 2001 | The Age

    Now that the electorate has shown resounding support for a principled approach to asylum seekers, a serious debate is emerging... Read More

95. The next battle is against tribalism: Nation building will not succeed in post-Taliban Afghanistan

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 Nov 2001 | The Australian

    Nomadic tribes have been at war in Afghanistan, among themselves and with their neighbours,  since time immemorial.  Afghanistan... Read More

96. Sorry, we're not a soft target

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 29 Aug 2001 | The Australian

    Church and other refugee support groups are absolutely right.  The plight of the boat people is terrible.  Pure compassion... Read More

97. Chance for IMF reform

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 13 Jun 2001 | The Australian Financial Review

    Last week’s appointment of Anne Krueger as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund heralds a serious... Read More

98. GDP stands the test of time

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 15 Mar 2001 | The Australian Financial Review

    Ed Mishan, a leading English economist, writing when Simon Kuznets was complaining about the shortcomings of GDP as an indicator... Read More

99. Aid has failed the Pacific

    Helen Hughes AO 1928 - 2013 | 30 Nov -0001

    Per capita income has grown at less than 1% a year in the Pacific during the past 30 years. In some islands it has declined.... Read More