New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's promise of Indigenous reform was met with scepticism from Indigenous Australians, with the more optimistic saying they will wait and see, but others expecting no change at all.
Director of the ANU's National Centre for Indigenous Studies Professor Mick Dodson said he was cautiously optimistic about the new Government, but would reserve his judgment to "see how they go".
Former ATSIC chairman Lionel Quartermaine was not so conciliatory, saying Mr Rudd had skirted around the Indigenous issue and he was not hopeful the new leader would deliver on Indigenous affairs.
Director of the Cape York Institute Noel Pearson was more forthright, saying any hope of Labor doing something courageous for Indigenous people was "an illusion".
Mr Pearson was responding to Mr Rudd's assertion on the eve of the election that Labor would not hold a referendum on reconciliation in its first term, if at all.
"This has obviously been a complete charade," Mr Pearson said on the ABC, "for those people who think that, well, let's give Labor the move to perhaps run with this agenda in some later term. Then I just say, well, we'll have a re-run of Bob Hawke here."
Gary Highland, director of reconciliation group ANTaR, said Indigenous hesitancy about the new Government was understandable.
"Last time Labor came to power, they came promising a national land rights legislation. Later, they promised a treaty. Neither of those eventuated," he told The Epoch Times.
Mr Highland said a Rudd Government had the "potential to usher in a new era for this country", but ANTaR was not taking anything for granted.
"We will need to mount a persuasive case in order to achieve the change that we would like to see," he said.
The Labor Party backed the Howard Government's Northern Territory (NT) intervention, but its Indigenous policies are significantly different to those of its predecessors.
In regards to the intervention, Labor wants to reintroduce, albeit of a modified form, the Community Employment and Development Programme (CEDP) that was canned as part of the Coalition's intervention strategy.
Labor will also reinstall the permit system that ostensibly allows NT community members to control who is allowed into their communities.
"We see that these changes to the Northern Territory intervention would be positive," Mr Highland said.
Labor has also promised resources and programmes to close the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, a representative body for Aboriginal people and an official apology to members of the stolen generation.
Mr Highland said the apology would be a significant move in rebuilding trust with the Indigenous community in Australia.
"Rebuilding that trust will be essential to dealing with some of the unfinished business that is still there in this country," he said.
Mr Rudd reaffirmed Labor's commitment to an apology soon after elected, but said it would happen only at the right time.
"It will be early, early in the parliamentary term," he said. "However, we would frame it in a consultative fashion with communities and that may take some time."
Consultation was an important issue, Mr Highland said. One of the criticisms of the previous Government was the lack of involvement of Indigenous people in the decision-making process, he explained. Labor's Indigenous policies would not work without involving Indigenous people.
"We think that these things don't need to happen overnight," he said. "A more careful, considered approach is what is needed and, importantly, it has to proceed as a result of genuine negotiations with Indigenous people, not new reforms imposed over the top of Indigenous people."
Professor Dodson said he believed Labor would be more conscious of issues from the human rights perspective, citing Labor's plan to bring the Northern Territory intervention in accordance with the Racial Discrimination Act – an Act that the Howard Government had simply overturned, to his horror.
"I think they [Labor] have a greater conscience about human rights protections and defending them," he said, "and I think they will be more fair and inclusive with Indigenous people."
Professor Dodson said he was particularly pleased Mr Rudd had declared his support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Australia was one of only four countries that voted against the UN General Assembly's long-awaited Declaration in September last year.
Professor Dodson, a former Australian Human Rights Commissioner, has spent over a decade preparing the Declaration in conjunction with a United Nations Working Group.
"We will be urging him [Mr Rudd] to take the necessary steps to indicate to the UN General Assembly that Australia supports the declaration," he said.
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