It's not the money, it's the land
Download Bill Bunbury's three-part Hindsight series about the battle for equal wages among Aboriginal workers in the cattle industry. It includes an account of the Wave Hill Station strike by the Gurindji people in 1966, and provokes thought about the way we implement decisions. When we do the right thing, do we always do it for the people we're supposed to be helping? Bill Bunbury's book about the radio series, It's Not The Money, It's The Land, is published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners please be warned; the voices of deceased people may be heard in these programs.
Part 1: It's not the money, its the land: Aboriginal Pastoral Workers of Northern Australia
In this first program, we look back to the 1880s in both the Northern Territory and the Kimberley to ask how Aboriginal people became involved in the pastoral industry, the accommodation they reached with pastoralists, and the complicated but unregulated system of pay and conditions. After World War II, a campaign by a hitherto reluctant Northern Australian Workers' Union led to the Equal Pay Award in 1966. Its immediate and not unexpected effect was unemployment and loss of country, as pastoralists replaced the old-style reimbursement of food, clothing, care of dependants and occasional handouts with regular pay to a few selected breadwinners. Within three years, unwanted workers and their families had left station life to live on the edge of northern Australian towns like Katherine, Wyndham and Fitzroy Crossing.
Part 2: It's not the money, its the land: Aboriginal Pastoral Workers of Northern Australia
When Equal Wages came to the Kimberley in the 1970s the effect for Aboriginal communities was devastating. Although some families had already begun to move in to town and away from station life, now the sudden exodus of many more put great strain on individuals, on communities, and on the capacity of towns like Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek to absorb hundreds of uprooted people. It also broke down the long-standing relationship between pastoralist and pastoral worker, and de-skilled many experienced men and women. Former station dwellers and their families were often forced to live close to people who had hitherto been enemies or strangers, and to accept welfare as a way of life. Most importantly, they were no longer on or near their own country. Working for the pastoralist had at least enabled them to visit important places, go hunting, observe ceremony and preserve much of their culture. They were now living 'in a waiting room, worrying for country.'
Part 3: It's not the money, its the land: Aboriginal Pastoral Workers of Northern Australia
In the long run the Equal Wages story has to be seen in the context of many other issues and events: the Referendum of 1967, the granting of drinking rights to Indigenous Australians, the assimilation policies of the 1960s which encouraged their merger with mainstream life, the steadily increasing mechanisation of pastoral work and a steady decline in the importance and value of the industry during the 1970s. But perhaps the most durable issue for Indigenous people was, and still is, the urgency of return to country. This called for leadership and the formation of resource agencies like the Kimberley Land Council, which committed itself, often against considerable odds, to assisting Aboriginal communities to return to country, either to run cattle stations or simply to be 'in the real place', as former stockman Basil Thomas aptly put it. That story is still unfinished, but is a vital part of the legacy of the Equal Wages Award of 1966; a story with many negatives but a few gains. Pastoralists, Indigenous leaders and others reflect on a decision which explains much about our recent history.
AWAYE Program - 40 Years after the Walkoff
Awaye! takes you to the Freedom Day festival held last weekend at Kalkaringi and Dagaragu where the Gurindji people began their struggle for justice in 1966.
