And suddenly, magic happens!

You know a Coalition idea is fanciful when it is immediately ridiculed in readers' comments in The Australian.   I mean, seriously?:

UNEMPLOYED ­Aborigines in remote communities will be forced into work for the dole five days a week, with tough new sanctions for failing to participate, under changes that have in-principle cabinet agreement.
Under the new policy, un­employed people with full work capacity would be forced into 25 hours of “work-like” dole activities spread over the week. Sources said there would not be any activities that allowed people to spend their time “painting rocks”. Instead the activities would replicate real work to ensure unemployed Aborigines were “work ready”.
The scheme will force all ­remote Aborigines into work for the dole but there will be people who will be allowed to do less than 25 hours a week based on their ­“assessed capacity”, which will ­acknowledge that some ­people who are on the general ­unemployment benefit, Newstart Allowance, are parents or disabled.
Sources said the joint cabinet submission by Employment Minister Eric Abetz, Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews and Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion greatly increased the sanctions placed on unemployed Aborigines in remote areas who failed to meet their new mutual obligations.
The larger package, including new spending to pay for the massively expanded scheme, must still go back to cabinet for final endorsement.

The big question is:  why does this government think it can make such a scheme work when it sounds like exactly the same thing that has been tried with but minor variations for decades?  Wave a magic wand?   

Someone in comments notes this from the NSW Aboriginal Board in 1941:

‘Self-help. For many years the aborigines have been regarded as people needing protection and not capable of meeting successfully the economic stress of our more civilised daily life, and a system has grown up whereby aborigines have been provided with the necessities of life at the hand of the Government .The free distribution of benefits, however, has resulted in a tendency by a section of the aboriginal community to lean almost entirely upon the Government, without making any serious attempt to provide for themselves.The Board will continue to supply needy aborgines with sustenance and other social benefits, but those who are capable of working are, and will be, urged to become proficient and to obtain employment, thus enabling them to support themselves and their families.’

 But suddenly, 73 years later, the Abbott government can make it happen?  Colour me unconvinced.

By the way: one thing I don't quite understand about issues with remote aboriginal communities is this.  In old footage we see of mission settlements back in the mid 20th century, it seems that some (or many, or all, I don't know) had community farms which grew at least some of the food they relied on.   One gets the impression that this doesn't happen now.   If the impression is right, why isn't there more emphasis on local employment and training based around local self sufficiency in food and meat?   It would seem obvious that it would be a useful, meaningful thing for locals to be engaged in. I guess water supply is in an issue in some places, but not all, surely.