Homelands represent the intersection of specific areas of country… That is, they do not represent random settlements ‘where people go for a better lifestyle’ away from the larger communities created by non-Indigenous agents.

In contrast, homelands represent particular living areas in which each Indigenous individual and group is based in order to fulfil their own cultural obligations to their inherited country and its underlying traditional Law.

No, they’re not talking about apartheid-vintage Bantustans, but Aboriginal settlements across remote Northern Territory. An eerily similar description though, and you’re forgiven for being confused.

Though they sound the same, they aren’t the same: the NT homeland initiative is very much an Aboriginal-led one; the government supports it with funding (although a finite amount); and mining capitalists aren’t constantly sending their touts (labour recruiters) in there with contracts.

The quote is from a report entitled Our home, our homeland, quoted by Graham Ring, which I found via Fieldnotes and Footnotes.