Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The modern Australian land rights movement has seen many successful political collaborations between indigenous people, trade unionists, communists, and environmentalists. The legacy of these political relationships emerging in the early decades of the twentieth century, largely due to collaboration between the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and indigenous people entering the workforce, served to strengthen land rights struggles from the 1960s to the present. In 1966 the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory (NT) went on strike, citing racially discriminatory pay and working conditions on cattle stations. However, it quickly became a struggle for land when the striking Gurindji people moved to their traditional lands of Dagu Ragu (Wattie Creek) in what was, according to white law, an illegal occupation. They demanded 500 square miles of their country to be given back to them. The strike lasted for nine years, and the demand was ultimately met, although the area handed back was smaller than the original claim. In 1975, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam granted the Gurindji people leasehold rights, and in 1986 this was converted to freehold lease. The struggle won broad support from unionists and activists across the country. The CPA campaigned within the unions in which it held influence, mobilizing financial, material, and political support that was to be critical to the campaign. ... log in or subscribe to read full text