In the letter he accuses Mr Giles, a fine Indigenous MLA - voted in by the people for the Country Liberals as ‘playing the man and not the ball’.

He then goes on and personally attacks him. I’m sorry Mr McCarthy but that stinks of hypocrisy.

I have grown up and worked in this great Northern Territory for over 40 years, representing the NT on several occassions in sport and was picked for an Australian team as a Territorian, so by your comments stated in your letter I should be qualified to have my say.

You also state that when you came to the Territory 30 years ago, your Indigenous students were coming to school ‘from behind pieces of corrugated iron scattered throughout the fringe camps of the town’.

Then you go on about how for nearly three decades the CLP (Country Liberals) failed families in the Barkly, hence your interest in the Henderson Government.

Who is trying to re-write history now?

Who was in government when the original infrastructure including town camp houses, roads, hospital, High School, Karguru School, schools throughout the Barkly, the last Government houses in the town boundry, showgrounds including the rodeo complex were all built?

The list goes on and on and on, and in case you’re not aware the Government at the time in the “nearly three decades” was the CLP.

Now to the McArthur River Bridge.

It was a straight out Labor Party promise in the 2001 election yet eight, nearly nine years later, along with the swimming pool, the election promises have not been delivered.

I only hope that after all this time when - and if - it finally gets built it will be of a standard equal to that of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

I will not plagiarise in my writing about the way housing money is being spent in Tennant Creek.

Instead I will quote the former Member for Barkly, Elliott McAdam, whose comments on the front page of this same newspaper on the same day as your letter, “This is a big shame job.”