Even the most blinkered activists will not dispute the desperate social ills and misery that afflict many indigenous communities. But they despair that the barrage of negative coverage has left every one of Australia's 400,000 indigenous people under the same cloud.

Activist and filmmaker Richard Frankland has just completed a new project - Ngaweeyan Thookay: Voice of Children - which attempts to show indigenous children in a more positive light. 'I see a lot of champions and heroes - indigenous and non-indigenous - doing absolutely wonderful things, for Australia as a whole,' he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. 'Neglected by the popular press, broader Australia doesn't see this.'

Behind the overwhelmingly negative headlines it is not too hard to find encouraging progress from Aboriginals whose 'dreamtime' has not been fuelled by drugs and 'rivers of grog'.

Some of them live in Moree, where a radical employment experiment is having the same rejuvenating powers as the local hot spring baths.

A decade ago the sprawling bush town 700km north of Sydney was just another depressing example of an indigenous community on a seemingly permanent downward spiral. Drunken mobs roamed the town centre. Stories of violence and sex crimes were all too common. Racial disharmony and distrust ruled.

Since 1997 the Aboriginal Employment Strategy (AES) has helped more than 1,000 local indigenous people find work, but the consequences run far deeper.

'It's very noticeable that there are a lot of Aboriginal people who are now respected,' says cotton farmer Dick Estens, who founded the initiative.

Drunken youths no longer loiter in the town centre. 'They are gone,' he says. 'And that gives me an insight into the progress we have made in Moree.'

No one pretends the town's indigenous people - who make up a quarter of the population - have shaken off the social ills that blight so many Aboriginal communities around Australia.

But employers agree that signs of improvement, although slow, are there for all to see. '[There has been] an amazing difference,' said local bank manager Bruce McQualter.

'There's a lot more pride in the town. There's a lot more multicultural faces on the main street in employment, where years ago you never saw indigenous people employed on the main street.'

So impressed was the Prime Minister, John Howard, with the Moree experiment that his government has put up A$17 million (HK$117 million) in funding over three years. The AES now has seven offices in New South Wales, including three in Sydney, with more planned around Australia. All of the staff are Aboriginal.

'Moree was a very troublesome town with some racial divide, high unemployment, a high level of crime,' said AES chief executive Danny Lester.

'Now in certain [parts of the town] those three critical areas have dropped off. We think it's partly the work we're doing, but it needs to be a community effort.'

Last year Mr Lester oversaw the placement around New South Wales of almost 1,000 indigenous people into jobs with several partner companies, including banks, retailers and mining firms. A mentoring programme helps employee and employer alike to keep them in work.

In Australia, soaring levels of unemployment are just one of the key areas in which indigenous people lag behind the rest of the population.

From poor health to literacy rates, the appalling statistics are fuelled by higher levels of alcohol and drug addiction that contribute to domestic violence in vastly overcrowded homes. The AES believes weaning Aboriginals off welfare dependence is vital in building the self-esteem, pride and commitment necessary to turn things around.

That is also the 'tough love' mantra of respected indigenous leader, Noel Pearson, who has the ear of the Howard government and played a key role in its decision to take over Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory.

The prime minister's track record on indigenous issues may be poor, but last month he suddenly declared a 'national emergency' after an inquiry found alarming levels of sexual abuse against Aboriginal children.

Troops and extra police have been sent to enforce bans on alcohol and pornography. Welfare payments will be linked to school attendance and parents will have to spend at least half on food and other essentials.

The dramatic response, which effectively ends decades of attempts at Aboriginal self-determination, has split indigenous leaders. But Mr Pearson likens opposition to protecting children as a 'form of madness'.

He runs the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership on the north-eastern tip of Australia and last week the government dug deep to back his plan to propel 2,500 people in four local communities out of the poverty trap.

They have committed A$48 million to a four-year trial designed to boost literacy rates and create jobs.

Perhaps most importantly, new laws will be drawn up restricting welfare payments to neglectful parents or those convicted of drugs, alcohol or domestic violence offences.

'The nature of welfare is one that isn't colour conscious,' says Mr Pearson. 'The kind of distress that has consumed my passion in my own community is one that I read about in non-indigenous communities.

'I read about these problems in Leeds and Newcastle and Manchester and New York. These problems are a question of passive welfare dependency that becomes an inter-generational problem. The reform is about making what was unconditional, conditional.'

The 42-year-old lawyer's high-profile work has earned many plaudits, including from renowned environmental campaigner Tim Flannery, who believes Mr Pearson should follow him with the honour of Australian of the Year.

The Cape York Institute is already home to the Young Australian of the Year.

Tania Major, 25, was the first person from her community to not only complete a university degree - in criminology - but to complete her secondary education.

Of the 15 pupils in her school class, seven have been jailed, two for murder, rape and assault. Only three are not alcoholics and four have committed suicide. Ms Major turned down job offers in the US to return to the Cape, where she now works at the institute as a youth ambassador, helping a new generation of young community leaders.

It is successful role models like Ms Major - and several high-profile Aboriginal sports stars - who provide the most effective antidote to the barrage of negative indigenous coverage.

Arguably the best-known and -loved Aboriginal is Ernie Dingo, the only ever-present indigenous face on commercial television over the past 20 years.

He is now planning to address that scarcity with the establishment of a new company, Aboriginal Role Models.

'There are not too many Aboriginal presenters in the mainstream and I'd love that to change,' he told Melbourne's Herald Sun. 'So we could add a little colour to colour TV, if you'll pardon the pun.

'I need young men and women with confidence, up front, bang. Not, 'I've just got tongue-tied, I've just got shy again, back into the Aboriginal shell'.'

At the AES Mr Estens is challenging dire school dropout rates by finding school children work placements.

He talks of the positive impact and peer pressure of kids earning A$100 a week.

In the long term, Mr Estens says, education and employment - and building a 'career path mentality' - are the key to creating a 'black middle class'.

'Next year we're looking at putting 400 people into the banks,' he says. 'In 10 years that's 4,000 people and that's going to have a big impact.'