W HEN JAMES COOK landed in Australia in 1770, Aboriginals had been there for about 60,000 years. Their 500 or so separate nations lacked kingpins or settled agriculture, so colonisers deemed the land terra nullius, free for the taking. Aboriginals were butchered or displaced, and later their children were stolen and placed in foster care under a cultural assimilation programme that lasted for six decades. They got the vote only in 1962. After a referendum five years later, they were included in the census. But not until 1992 did the high court recognise that they should have some claim over their land.

Even well-intentioned policies brought in more recently have failed them. When the law said they must be paid the same wage as other Australians for the same job, many were sacked. Billions of dollars are poured into programmes to help indigenous peoples every year, with mixed results. The decade-wide gap in life expectancy is getting wider. Though only 3% of the population, Aboriginals fill a quarter of Australia’s prison cells. Their young men have one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Their children are almost ten times more likely to be in state care.

In Broome, a tourist resort on Australia’s north-western coast, groups hang out under trees, or drink on park benches. For a small town, it has a lot of police. “We operate in a kind of failed state,” explains Peter Yu, head of the Yawuru Aboriginal Corporation, which represents Broome’s pre-colonial owners. Some communities are afflicted by diseases which are almost unheard of outside the poor world, including trachoma, which can lead to blindness.

Part of the frustration of the Aboriginals stems from how small a say they have in their own affairs. Many of them want to amend the constitution to guarantee wider rights, enshrining a voice for the “first nations”, as they are now more often known. But the conservative-led coalition government rejected their idea of a national representative body. Still, indigenous land rights have strengthened since a native title law was passed in 1994. Aboriginals hold title over 31% of the country, with rights to hunt and fish, and to negotiate over economic developments such as mining.

Some groups, like the Yawuru, have struck lucrative deals with the government. Their corporation is now the biggest private landowner in Broome, according to Mr Yu, with assets including a cattle station and a licence to export livestock. It has used the cash from compensation to revive local culture through language lessons and the promotion of ancestral “dreamtime” stories. But it is an exception. Native title rarely confers actual ownership. Neither does it permit a veto over projects. To extract compensation from mining companies, traditional owners are often required to “extinguish” their title, which is anathema to those who view their land as sacred.

Many Aboriginals therefore look with envy across the Tasman Sea, to the Maori. They remain at the bottom of New Zealand’s pile, but still live longer and healthier lives than Aboriginals. New Zealanders who identify as Maori are 15% of the population of 5m. Their median weekly income of NZ$900 ($610) is almost double that of their Aboriginal counterparts. Although more than half of New Zealand’s inmates are Maori, they are less likely to go to prison than Aboriginals.

This relative success is partly a reflection of colonial history. British settlers reached New Zealand much later than Australia, found what they saw as a more civilised society, and signed a treaty with the Maori in 1843. It was routinely flouted but a tribunal established in 1975 has allowed the Maori to seek redress for historical abuses.

But it also reflects the Maori themselves. They are a tight-knit group compared with Australia’s distinct indigenous “nations”. They formed a monarchy in order to unify against colonialists, and almost all speak the same language. Once near extinction, it is now taught in schools and spoken in Parliament (where the Maori have reserved seats). An illustrious list of leaders includes Winston Peters, the current deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Three Maori have become archbishops and two governors-general.

Some 87 agreements have been struck between various tribes and the state in the past 30 years, helping them to lay the past to rest. Financial reimbursements can be stingy, but some have won large enough settlements to develop successful companies. The largest belongs to the Ngai Tahu, a people spanning most of the South Island, who own farms, fisheries and tourism ventures. TDB Advisory, a consultancy, values the assets of Maori “post-settlement entities” at NZ$7.8bn, far more than Australia’s entire indigenous economy.

The two countries’ attitudes towards their indigenes could scarcely be more different. Mainstream Australians are still largely segregated from Aboriginals. New Zealanders tend to take more pride in their mixed heritage. Maori tattoos are ubiquitous in mainly white suburbs. Citizens of every hue glory in their country’s domination of rugby (both the men’s and women’s teams are ranked top of the world). All purr with pride at the haka, a Maori war dance that precedes international matches.