For all the speech-making over the waste site in the Darwin parliament, and all the grandstanding by the Territory's Labor politicians, power remains firmly with Canberra. The Northern Territory is unlikely to make progress any time soon in its bid for statehood; it is too useful to the commonwealth as a zone for decision-making.

Muckaty, 120km north of Tennant Creek, in some of Australia's most sparsely populated country, was offered to the Howard government as a waste site by the Northern Land Council and the NLC this week stood by its proposal.

Bizarrely, the Territory Labor government is opposed, although it remains a keen supporter of uranium exploration and hosts Australia's oldest established uranium mine, the vast Ranger open-cut in Kakadu. Statehood remains the ambition of the regime in Darwin, despite its recent track record of instability and bureaucratic failures on an epic scale.

Three years ago, with the "emergency response" legislation, the commonwealth stripped the Territory of authority over much of its land and population.

The managerial debacle of the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program in remote communities led Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin to impose her department's bureaucrats as watchdogs over the Territory's serried ranks of overseers last year. The latest disaster is the failure of the Territory's Families and Community Services department, which has resulted in high-level public service resignations, but no demotions from ministerial ranks.

A campaign for statehood, which requires Canberra's support, may seem a dream too far.

But, in a twist no scriptwriter would dare to employ, members of the Territory's optimistic statehood committee have spent the past week beating about the bush, covering the very terrain where Muckaty station lies.

On Wednesday, the stars of statehood were engaged in consciousness-raising at the Utopia community basketball court. Given that the last time the Territory aimed for statehood the referendum question was roundly rejected by Aboriginal citizens, this focus on bush communities makes sense. But there are issues to address before grand constitutional questions come into focus.

The Territory has half the population of the smallest state in the federation and no real economy beyond the public service. An estimated one in 10 Territorians have trouble reading any more than the most basic official documents. Informed consent, anyone?