Larissa Behrendt attacks the chasm which has grown between Indigenous lives and aspirations in Australia, and the psychological terra nullius which continues, despite Mabo, to pervade so much of Australia’s mythology and policy.

She proposes longer term, aspirational initiatives leading to institutional change that will facilitate greater rights protection and the exercise of self-determination, including:

* a preamble to the Constitution
* a treaty
* the national self-image
* economic redistribution
* alternative institutional forms
* regional framework agreements
* a more energised politics
* Constitutional protection.