McDonald Room, Menzies Library, ANU

The Gurindji Walk-off: Orality, Causality and some Counter-Narratives from Wave Hill, 1966

Charlie Ward, Faculty of Education, Humanities and Law, Flinders University

Between 1966–72, the lives of Northern Territory Indigenous people changed radically. In the same period as equal wages and citizen rights were awarded, many lost their jobs in the cattle industry and were removed from their traditional lands as a result. Some groups however, attempted to take control of their affairs, garnering both public support and strong political opposition.

Foremost among these groups were the Gurindji people at Wattie Creek, who undertook an iconic union-supported ‘Walk-off’ from Wave Hill station in 1966. They subsequently campaigned for recognition of their rights to land while illegally developing a village and infrastructure on the British Vestey company’s pastoral lease.  

In this paper, three common narratives regarding the Wave Hill Walk-off and the Gurindji’s intentions in the period are questioned by drawing on previously unexamined source material and the effects of rarely-acknowledged rural and Indigenous ‘oralities’. Firstly the (un)popular narrative presented by pastoralists and conservative politicians that the Walk-off had been directed by Communist activists is revisited. The argument that, as a result of Communist intervention, the Gurindji’s focus shifted substantially from industrial issues to land during 1966–67 as a result of communist intervention is also questioned. Finally, attention is paid to the 1967–75 period at Wattie Creek, which has been commonly described as one of waiting and passivity for the Gurindji. An argument for a fuller recognition of the Gurindji’s post-Walk-off activity and agenda is made, in which they are acknowledged not merely as ‘squatters’ but aspiring ‘settlers’ of the ‘northern frontier’.

Image above: Peter Morris and Vincent Lingiari August 1966 courtesy Brian Manning

Charlie Ward’s Masters’ thesis is titled ‘Following the Gurindji Walk-off to Wattie Creek, 1966–1972’. He lived with the Gurindji people in Kalkaringi and Daguragu communities during 2004–06 and has been using oral history to research those communities since that time. He has received two Northern Territory History Grants for this purpose and has published in Griffith Review on his findings. From 2008–10 Charlie was employed as a caseworker for the Stolen Generations in Alice Springs. His work has been published in Southerly, Meanjin and Journal of Australian Colonial History. He is working on a book about the outcomes of the Wave Hill Walk-off, 1966–1986.