tom parry::The sight of malnourished native australians clad in rags and howling with unearthly screams as they squatted outside the hospital in alice springs was one i will never forget.
This was not the palatable side of the shimmering desert city the tourist authorities want to show off.
Likewise i still remember vividly seeing drunks, crazed by the chronic alcoholism that has ripped apart many aboriginal tribes, being herded up into cages on the back of police vans in kalgoorlie, a mining town in west australia.
I remember one black woman being shunted out by the white bar owner after straying into the wrong room.
Though australians speak of a great leap forward being made in the recognition of the suffering of their indigenous population, suggests there is still a huge amount of work to do.
Campaigners in the capital canberra want the 20,000 aboriginal lives lost in frontier battles with the british colonists to be recognised at the national war memorial.
They argue that the savage killings that went hand in hand with the rugged explorers who opened up the continent deserve as much notice as the deaths of australian soldiers who fought in the two world wars.
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