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address the issues of adequate resourcing, particularly where there are already limited butinnovative alternative bail programs which involve Indigenous communities.Diversionary schemesIn general terms, diversionary schemes are mechanisms and programs to divertyoung people away from the formal processes of the Children’s Court. The most simpleform of diversion is the use of warnings and cautions by police such as those referred toabove. Diversionary schemes may involve some type of community involvement in thedesign and administration of the scheme, although this is by no means a necessaryfeature. Indeed there has been a general lack of Indigenous consultation, negotiation andcontrol over those schemes.‘Diversionary’ programmes are frequently rigid in their structure. Contrary to Recommendation62 [of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody], they are not designed in closeconsultation with Indigenous communities or adapted to local circumstances. They are packagedin remote ‘policy’ units and driven or posted into communities.We see diversion delivered to us in a package because ‘they’ know what is best for ‘us’. Thepaternalism of such diversion reflects the earlier policies of ‘care and protection’ and‘assimilation’ that permitted the removal of Indigenous children from their families up until the1970s (Dodson 1996 page 31).The problem has been referred to as a ‘one size fits all’ solution to Indigenousissues. These simple models of dispute resolution fail to understand the complex realityof Indigenous communities and ignore fundamentally the principle of self-determination(Dodson 1996 page 61, Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996 page 219).In recent years ‘family group conferencing’ has become an increasingly favouredoption for diversion. The conference brings together the young offender and supportpersons, the victim and supporters and police and youth workers with the aim that theyoung offender will develop a sense of responsibility for the offence. The objective is toreach a mutually agreeable resolution for the harm that has been caused by the offenceand to reintegrate the offender into the community. Various forms of ‘conferencing’ havebeen established in most jurisdictions. By and large, they adapt and modify parts of theNew Zealand system of family group conferences.The New Zealand system derives from extensive consultation with Maoricommunities and is reflective of Maori traditions. 8 The Australian adaptations have beenreferred to as ‘hybrids’ with ‘the real spirit of the diversionary process completely lost inall but a few cases’ (Dodson 1996 page 42). Other grounds of criticism include,• Conferencing suffers from the ‘one size fits all’ approach to Aboriginal justice – amodel is imposed on Aboriginal communities to which they are expected to adhere.• The new systems lack basic commitments to negotiation with Indigenous