REPORTER: Blackfella's country — until recently, few people realised that there might be such a thing.
The idea that the Aborigine might own some of the land he discovered 100,000 years ago is one of the rude awakenings for Australians in the 1960s.
(Plays didgeridoo)
REPORTER: And these are the people who brought about the awakening, the Gurindjis, the remnants of a once-magnificent tribe now dressed like Hollywood extras and set against a background of squalor.
# DIDGERIDOO MUSIC
The Gurindjis are almost without exception stockmen. They first pricked the national conscience in 1966 when they went on strike at Wave Hill Station, 500 miles south of Darwin.
With more than 6,000 square miles of prime cattle country, Wave Hill is one of the largest stations in the world, and it's only one of a dozen or so stations in the Northern Territory owned by the British beef barons Vesteys. Vesteys started large-scale investment in the Territory during the First World War. They now hold a total of 32,000 square miles.
Nevertheless, the Gurindjis on Wave Hill had little share of the wealth. Wages were around $6 a week, and some claim they got only salt beef, bread and tobacco.
Spurred on by white and black civil rights workers including several Communists, the Aboriginal wages strike became a national issue, and from December this year, a new award will give some Aboriginal workers equal wages. But the Gurindjis wanted more.
Sensing sympathy, they asked for something that was more important to them — the land that was taken from their forefathers and which they'd worked for the whites with little in return.
They were led by Vincent Lingiari, a tribal elder who'd worked since childhood on Limbunya, Victoria River Downs and Wave Hill Stations.
Why do you want this land so much, Vincent?
VINCENT LINGARI: Well, I want land the same as anybody else.
REPORTER: What would you do on this land if it was yours?
VINCENT LINGARI: Well, I'm gonna do with the land when I do something about it, if I get cattle, if I get a horse, I might grow a bit bigger, I might start something up more.
REPORTER: Gurindji tribesmen came from stations hundreds of miles away when Lingiari and the other elders made their stand. The land they wanted was 500 square miles around Wattie Creek, an oasis almost at the centre of the Wave Hill property. Their earlier requests to Canberra were ignored, so in the words of Vincent Lingiari, they simply went over to the welfare joint, got a bale of wire and fenced off a small settlement area. They wanted Wattie Creek, they said, because it was a sacred Dreaming place.
VINCENT LINGARI: I went to the welfare joint…(Speaks indistinctly)..and I asked him for a coil of wire. And he said, 'What do you want a wire for?' I said, 'Oh, well, I want wire to put a fence…' (Indistinct) 'Righto,' he said, and we all got the wire and came and we showed everybody, bring it up here, and we started that morning, cutting up posts, and so we put it up — put a trailer up, wired around, finished it. And Mr Morris come along, and he said, 'Hey, you're stealing another man's country.' (Laughter) 'Oh, yeah. That's alright.' And I said, 'Well, what was before the Vestey born and I born? It was blackfella country.'
REPORTER: Last year, the Governor-General rejected a petition by natives for land at Wattie Creek, but a few months later, the new minister in charge of Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Wentworth, promised he would try to help the Gurindjis get about eight square miles of land at Wattie Creek.
The cabinet replied by offering 1.5 square miles of barren land near the Wave Hill Police Station and welfare settlement. The place is called Drovers Common. Cabinet also promised that it would be irrigated, but it's been suggested that to water the Common would be like irrigating the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Natives said it was not big enough. White landholders said that even if it was, the Aborigines would not know how to handle it.
The Cattlemen's Association of North Australia which has its office in the main street of Katherine was even against giving the Gurindjis land at the Common.
We spoke to the secretary of the Association in Katherine and arranged to interview him at his office later in the day, but he did not arrive.
At Wave Hill Station itself, they say they could well afford to give away some land. 1.5 square miles to the Gurindjis would leave Vesteys with a total holding of 31,998.5 square miles.
Nevertheless, Wave Hill's manager Frank Wilmington is opposed to Aboriginal land rights in principle.
FRANK WILMINGTON: I don't think they could handle land if they were given it. There have been several occasions in this territory where the native has been given land. He hasn't made a success of it, uh, and I don't think on this occasion it would be any different.
REPORTER: Cattlemen seem to be afraid that if the Gurindjis here are given land, that the government will have to give land to Aborigines all over Australia.
Is that a worry to you?
FRANK WILMINGTON: They are making a precedent if they give the Gurindji people the land here, and not only here in the…It doesn't even apply to the cattlemen. It also applies to any part in Australia, the Domain in Sydney, or any other portion of Australia.
REPORTER: Many people doubt whether the Gurindjis have the staying power to hold out for land at Wattie Creek. Indeed, some stockmen have already gone back to the stations.
But the Gurindjis are a proud race. They've been at Wattie Creek now for more than a year, and they say they're prepared to fight for the land.
VINCENT LINGARI: I won't quit from this place.
REPORTER: You'll fight for it?
VINCENT LINGARI: Yeah. (Speaks indistinctly)
REPORTER: Would you be prepared to fight for this land?
VINCENT LINGARI: Oh, yeah. You have to do the same thing what you done it before, before I born.
REPORTER: Would you fight for this land?
VINCENT LINGARI: Yes. It's my land.