Bureaucrats and Bleeding Hearts: Indigenous Health in Northern Australia

by Tess Lea

Bureaucrats and Bleeding Hearts takes you on an intimate journey into the lives of people armed with the task of ending Australian Aboriginal disadvantage in the frontier north of Australia. Taking a fresh look at longstanding issues, Lea examines the culture of bureaucracy, its need to create the look of action, how intelligent inhabitants uphold the apparatus of government even whilst they critique it, and how benevolent efforts to improve health have brought about unexpected co-dependencies and tragic failures. She paints a sympathetic yet discomforting portrait of those who, working on behalf of and for Aboriginal health, fiercely defend the ideas and principles that paradoxically reinstate the primary need for greater levels of government intervention.

276 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

Reviews

[Daria · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read. Tess Lea is a totally original thinker. As a bureaucrat who has worked in the NT this rings true and many of the paragraphs and scenes have stuck with me in the 5 years since reading this book.

[Ery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oof, what a challenging read. Tess makes no bones calling on the behaviour of those working in bureaucracy and the coalface of NT health.