Norm Frank lives with his wife and seven children in a tin shack the size of a double garage. They share one large bed between them. For more than three years Norm and his family have been promised a new home by the government, with no action. However, Norm considers himself lucky. He drives the ambulance for the local medical clinic, one of a handful of jobs available in the community of Utopia.

 Utopia is a remote Aboriginal settlement 300km North-East of Alice Springs. With its decentralised population, Utopia avoids the violence and other problems encountered when family and tribal groups are placed in close proximity to one another. Issues such as alcoholism and drug abuse while existing, are not endemic, although concerns over health, education and living standards are ever present.

 In a week that saw the anticipation of and eventually the first rain to fall in eight months, the community’s name was apt. The Howard Government’s intervention into Aboriginal communities was noticeable, as convoys of white four wheel drives drove up the dusty Sandover Highway and into Utopia.