There are times when the rhetoric about closing the gap between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the population sticks in the throat. This week I turned on my preferred television news source the 5.30 bulletin on National Indigenous TeleVision (SBS4) and found that it had disappeared.

The gap refers to the statistics showing the disadvantages suffered by the Indigenous peoples relative to other Australians. In fact, there are numerous gaps, in almost every social indicator: employment, income, housing, incarceration, violence, kidney and heart disease, literacy, education, infant mortality and life expectancy. At times, governments seem committed to finding solutions to these problems. At others, they seem to do little more than go through the motions while tacitly endorsing processes of assimilation. But any realistic solutions must acknowledge the ravages of dispossession and make urgent attempts to allow Indigenous people to regain their unique identities, something they will surely do if the broader Australian society avoids the kind of discrimination we have hitherto practised.

NITV News had the motto our stories, our way and was faithful to this aim. Here were stories that were not reported on mainstream channels and were generally ignored by media with a few exceptions. There were reports about threats to sacred sites, potential damage to fragile environment, overt and covert racism, government policies, bureaucratic bungling and proposed legislation. But the reports were always presented in a humble fashion without the pontification customary on other news sources. Relevant Ministers were approached often and whenever they appeared, were given generous time to put the government side. Again, this is unusual in television today when reporters seek to provide their own context, so skewing stories to their own views.

Very importantly, NITV News carried positive stories about Indigenous people and their achievements: positive developments in health, justice and employment and stories about members of the community supporting one another.

NITV News provided many positive spinoffs. As a result of turning to NITV, I discovered programs about Indigenous cooking, traditional culture, dancing and music among the young, grassroots sports action, classic movies and even found the Maori news report on weekends.

Successive governments have found Aboriginal affairs a difficult policy area. They have thrown money at Indigenous problems but the problems remain. They have devised slogans such as Reconciliation. They have advanced a woolly idea about Constitutional recognition. But they have failed to create mechanisms whereby diverse Indigenous voices could be heard. Indigenous leaders have continually appealed for genuine consultation but these appeals have not been heard.

Perhaps we really do not want to listen to what Indigenous people have to say. Apparently we doubt that the people who preserved the fragile Australian ecosystem for hundreds of bicentenaries have anything to teach us. Perhaps it is part of a broader re-focussing of our listening away from small, local communities on the ground towards what big business says through its mouthpieces in politics. Generally, the propaganda is about job creation and being able to afford environmental concerns. We cant dig up the Hunter Valley, the Liverpool Plains, the Pillaga Scrub to export if we listen to grassroots voices like those on NITV News, can we?

Tony Smith is a former academic living in Wiradjuri country.