The Aboriginal strike (walk-off) at Wave Hill

Aboriginal stockmen, who had always been the backbone of the northern Australian cattle industry, were not paid wage equal to those of their white counterparts. In fact, it was illegal up until 1968 to pay Aboriginal workers more than a specified amount in goods and money. An attempt to introduce equal wages in 1965 failed because pastoralists argued that equal wages would ruin the industry if paid immediately. It was decided to defer a decision for three years.

Australia's first land claim

But Aboriginal people did not submit to this decision. On 22 August 1966, 200 Aboriginal stockmen of the Gurindji people and their families walked off Wave Hill pastoral station in the Northern Territory, owned by a British aristocrat Lord Vestey.

Led by their Vincent Lingiari, they set up camp in a river bed (Victoria River). The camp moved before the wet season of that year and in 1967 the Gurindji Aboriginal people settled some 30 kilometres from Wave Hill Station at Wattie Creek (Daguragu), in the heart of their traditional land, near a site of cultural significance.

The Wave Hill walk-off was well supported and made headlines all over Australia. While the initial strike was about wages and living conditions it soon spread to include the more fundamental issue about their traditional lands. The Wave Hill walk-off had morphed into a land claim.

The Gurindji Aboriginal people were claiming that this land was morally theirs because their people "lived here from time immemorial and [their] culture, myths, dreaming and sacred places have been evolved in this land". This was the first claim for traditional Aboriginal land in Australia.

While Vestey's company was prepared to hand the land over, opposition to this unusual and new idea was very strong.

Wattie Creek becomes Aboriginal land

Nationally many people resisted the idea of handing back land to its traditional owners. Five years later (the government had changed too), on 16 August 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (Labor) handed over title to the land to the Gurindji Aboriginal people—the first act of restitution to Aboriginal people and the start of the land rights movement.

The Wave Hill walk-off had paved the way for the NT Land Rights Act which became law in 1975. In the same year the Gurindji people bought the pastoral lease. After the NT government threatened to resume the lease, the Gurindji lodged a land rights claim. In 1986 they gained freehold title to the waterhole on Wattie Creek known as Dagaragu, which is located in the Victoria River Region of the Northern Territory.

In May 2004, a memorial to Vincent Lingiari was unveiled as part of Reconciliation Place in Canberra.

Today 700 Gurindji live in the communities of Daguragu, on the banks of Wattie Creek and Kalkarinji, formerly known as Wave Hill [1].

The Wave Hill walk-off in poetry and song

Ted Egan wrote the Gurindji Blues in the 1960s with Vincent Lingiari. Some words are:

"Poor Bugger Me, Gurindji
Me bin sit down this country
Long before no Lord Vestey
All about land belong to we
[...]
Long time work no wages, we,
Work for the good old Lord Vestey
Little bit flour; sugar and tea
For the Gurindji, from Lord Vestey
..."

In 1991 Kev Carmody composed a song together with Paul Kelly in which they commemorate the Wave Hill walk-off, "From little things, big things grow":

"Gather round people let me tell you a story
An eight year-long story of power and pride
British Lord Vestey and Vincent Lingiari
Were opposite men on opposite sides"

The history of the Wave Hill walk-off has also been turned into a children's book, illustrated by Gurindji schoolchildren and featuring evocative landscape paintings by artist Peter Hudson. From Little Things Big Things Grow was published in November 2008 and is available through One Day Hill/Affirm Press (ISBN 9780975770887).

The Freedom Day Festival

The Freedom Day Festival is an annual celebration of the Wave Hill walk-off. 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.

Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
This page's sources are currently unavailable, except: [1] 'Big thing for Gurindji mob', Koori Mail 438 p.53