What is the significance of the wave hill walk off

Negotiations with the station owners, the international food company Vestey Brothers, broke down, leading to a seven-year dispute. This eventually led to the return of a portion of their homelands to the Gurindji people in , and the passing of the first legislation that allowed for Indigenous people to claim land title if they could prove a traditional relationship to the country.

Vincent Lingiari beside a plaque marking the handing over of the lease, in Wattie Creek, Northern Territory, 16 August The Gurindji people had lived on their homelands in what is now the Victoria River area of the Northern Territory for tens of thousands of years when in the colonial government granted almost square kilometres of their country to the explorer and pastoralist Nathaniel Buchanan.

In , cattle were moved onto the land and 10 years later there were 15, cattle and bullocks. This put incredible pressure on the environment, and the system of land management the Gurindji had developed over many millennia started to break down. This pattern was repeated across Australia as pastoralists took possession of Aboriginal lands and stocked them with cattle and sheep.

Traditional ways of life came under intense pressure in this clash between Western and Aboriginal land usage. Aboriginal people generally wanted to stay on their land; their lives were so connected to the environment there was an existential need for them to remain on Country.

This necessity to stay played into the hands of pastoralists as the cattle and sheep stations required cheap labour, and over the next 70 years Aboriginal people became an intrinsic but exploited part of the cattle industry across Northern Australia.

From legislation required that in return for their work, Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory should receive food, clothes, tea and tobacco. However, a report by RM and CH Berndt in showed that Aboriginal children under 12 were working illegally, that accommodation and rations were inadequate, that there was sexual abuse of Aboriginal women, and prostitution for rations and clothing was taking place.

No sanitation or rubbish removal facilities were provided, nor was there safe drinking water. In all Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory were made wards of the state and in the Wards Employment Regulations set out a scale of wages, rations and conditions applicable to wards employed in various industries. However, the ward rates were up to 50 per cent lower than those of Europeans employed in similar occupations and some companies even refused to pay their Aboriginal labourers anything.

The Buchanan family had sold what was then called Wave Hill station to the international meat-packing company Vestey Brothers in Through no progress was made in negotiations and the Gurindji community led by Vincent Lingiari walked off the station on 23 August. But Lingiari had another vision for his people and wanted nothing more than the rightful return of their lands.

The group walked some 30 kilometers from Wave Hill Station to Wattie Creek where they stayed in protest for nine long years. During the years of struggle and protest, which made headlines across the nation, Vincent Lingiari toured Australia to lobby politicians and galvanise support.

Victory was achieved in ! At the time the Gurindji strike was taking place in Australia, the worldwide civil rights movement was in full swing. Whilst many Australians are familiar with Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela, the history of the Indigenous Australian civil rights movement and its heroes, like Vincent Lingiari, is still largely unknown in our country.

Across the nation things were starting to change for Indigenous people. Australian people were starting to take notice and think differently. Cattle and farming destroyed Indigenous water, food sources and livelihoods.

Indigenous people were forced to work on the Station in order to receive rations and avoid starvation. The working conditions for the Indigenous labourers were extremely poor; they rarely received wages, were beaten or even killed for defying the landowners, and the women were often terribly abused. On the 23rd of August , Vincent Lingiari led courageous Wave Hill workers and their families, to walk off the Station and begin their strike. The group formed a new settlement at nearby Wattie Creek Daguragu.

Initially, the pastoralists believed the workers would return with improved wages and conditions. But the focus of the strike moved from workers' rights to land rights. But has the situation really improved? In Aboriginal people could walk-off in protest, but today their choices are more limited, there is less freedom. Back then it was the Vesteys Groups, a privately owned UK group of companies that was mistreating Aboriginal labour, today it is the Australian state.

In Kev Carmody composed a song together with Paul Kelly in which they commemorate the Wave Hill walk-off, "From little things, big things grow":.

The history of the Wave Hill walk-off has also been turned into a children's book, From Little Things Big Things Grow , illustrated by Gurindji schoolchildren and featuring evocative landscape paintings by artist Peter Hudson. It is a key event for the Aboriginal communities and recognises the contribution made by the Gurindji, Mudbara and Walpiri families to Australia's history.

See www. More and more Australians inoculate themselves against ignorance and stereotypes by finally reading up on Aboriginal history and the culture's contemporary issues.

But to truly move forward we need to achieve "herd information". It will definitely be really helpful in me getting to know, understand, honour and relate with Aboriginal people better.

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