LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Four years on, the Indigenous Intervention looks like it still has quite a way to run.

Today the Federal Government announced further measures to tackle alcohol abuse, to create jobs and to improve school attendance.

Getting Indigenous kids to school regularly has proved to be a huge hurdle and the Government's going to expand a trial program that links welfare payments to school attendance.

As you might expect, there's already opposition to the move, as Sara Everingham reports from Darwin.

SARA EVERINGHAM, REPORTER: In remote communities around the Northern Territory, the school day often begins early for teachers, picking up students to make sure they get to school. In recent years at Hermannsburg, 130 kilometres west of Alice Springs, teachers have been determined to get kids to class.

DARRELL FOWLER, FMR PRINCIPAL, HERMANNSBURG SCHOOL (April, 2009): We offer Weet-Bix and Milo at 8 o'clock in the morning. At 10.30 the children all get a hot meal and at 1 o'clock they have sandwiches and fruit every day. So, that's a fairly significant incentive to come to school.

SARA EVERINGHAM: The low rates of school attendance in remote Territory communities has long perplexed governments in Darwin and Canberra. Hermannsburg's one of several communities around the Northern Territory where the Commonwealth's been trialling a scheme linking school attendance and welfare payments for the past three years.

PETER GARRETT, MINISTER FOR SCHOOL EDUCATION: It's clear that attendance is the main game for us, particularly given the low levels of attendance that we witness in the Northern Territory compared to what happens nationally.

BESS PRICE, INDIGENOUS LEADER: It's huge. Well, look at the figures: there's 2,000 of our kids who don't go to school.

SARA EVERINGHAM: The Commonwealth Intervention in the Northern Territory has just under a year left to run and the Government needs to consider where it goes to after that. After a series of Government consultations with communities around the Territory, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin says the focus is now on education.

JENNY MACKLIN, MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS: Aboriginal people want to see their children getting to school and doing well at school.

SARA EVERINGHAM: From July next year, the Government wants to crack down on school truancy. If children miss 10 days in a term without an adequate excuse, the Government will step in. If children don't return to school, their parents' payments will be suspended.

JENNY MACKLIN: The Government is responding to these priorities that have been put to us so forcefully by Aboriginal people. We've worked very closely with local people, with their leaders, with the Northern Territory Government to put this package of legislation in front of the Parliament.

CHRIS SARRA, STRONGER SMARTER INSTITUTE: I have no doubt that Aboriginal parents wanna get their kids to school. That's been my experience right across the country.

SARA EVERINGHAM: Dr Chris Sarra is a leading expert on Indigenous education. A former teacher and principal, he's directly taken on the issue of school attendance. He questions whether there's enough carrot in the Government's plan.

CHRIS SARRA: The problem with the big stick approach is that it is so politically sexy that it looks fantastic to the broader electorate, but we are spending large amounts of money that only see a minimal return. We know for sure that we'll invest smaller amounts in positive relationships. We get a much bigger return.

SARA EVERINGHAM: The Government's trial of the scheme has been running in 44 schools for three years at a cost of $31 million.

The Government did not provide any figures, but says indications from the trial show it is helping to improve attendance. But Chris Sarra says governments need to encourage school attendance by providing better schools and enforce it through existing laws.

CHRIS SARRA: What I found problematic is there were police and magistrates who lacked courage to execute the law or the authority that they had, and if those kinds of people had the courage to execute the law in an Aboriginal community in the same way as they would in a white community, if systemically we had the courage to intervene in those sorts of circumstances, there wouldn't be any requirement for this.

PETER GARRETT: Look, I think the key thing here is this is about sitting down with parents and agreeing an attendance plan. It might be something as simple as saying to the parents we want you to walk your kids to school and bring them back again if they're primary age.

SARA EVERINGHAM: On the ground, there's agreement school attendance is a problem but division on what needs to be done. For Indigenous people campaigning for an end to the Intervention, the Government's plan is only likely to reinvigorate their fight.

BARBARA SHAW, INTERVENTION ROLLBACK ACTION GROUP: I've never heard any Aboriginal people say that we want to link school attendance with our welfare payments or income management.

BESS PRICE: We need to get our kids to school and we need to take drastic measures and you need that tough love approach.

SARA EVERINGHAM: Bess Price has left her position as the chairwoman of the Northern Territory Government's Indigenous Advisory Council and is running for the Country Liberals in the next Territory election. She says the Government's plan is long overdue.

BESS PRICE: I've been talkin' to people who've said, "Look, penalise the parents, penalise the parents. Take their welfare payments away. Because, you know, they don't deserve it, because they don't worry about their kids' education.

SARA EVERINGHAM: The first federal intervention in the Northern Territory was criticised for failing to consult with communities, but the minister insists she's keen to take a different approach to win over hearts and minds.

JENNY MACKLIN: We do need to keep working with Aboriginal people to make sure that their communities are safe, to make sure that people have got the chance to get a good job and their kids are getting a good education.

LEIGH SALES: And the school truancy legislation will go before the federal Parliament next week.