What is the Wave Hill Walk-Off?

Community

What is the Wave Hill 

Walk-Off?


TEAGAN KUM SING

AUGUST  22, 2024

Freedom March retracing Wave Hill Walk-off with people marching with Aboriginal flag

Freedom Day March following Wave Hill Walk-off track. 

Photo: Dane Hirst / ABC News 

Content warning: This post contains images and references of persons who have passed away.


23rd August 2024 marks the 58th anniversary of the Wave Hill Walk-Off.


On this day in 1966, 200 Gurindji stockmen, domestic workers, and their families at Wave Hill cattle station (owned by a British company) ‘walked off’ their jobs and went on strike. Led by Vincent Lingiari, the courageous workers and their families were striking in demand of fair wages, improved living conditions, and a return of land rights.


Vincent Lingiari, addressing the media after Prime Minister Gough Whitlam officially returns Aboriginal land at Wattie Creek, Northern Territory, August 1975.

Vincent Lingiari addressing the media after Prime Minister Gough Whitlam officially returns Aboriginal land at Wattie Creek, Northern Territory, August 1975. 

Photo: Penny Tweedie / National Library of Australia obj-138156433


Current legislation permitted First Nations people in the Northern Territory to be paid at least 50% lower than non-Indigenous employees, often exclusively in food, clothes, tea, and tobacco. Workers lived in conditions without adequate food, sanitation, or clean drinking water. Abuse and exploitation was rampant. 

First Nations peoples’ connection to Country means there is often a spiritual need to remain on the land. This necessity to stay played into the hands of pastoralists as the stations required cheap labour. Over the coming years, First Nations peoples became an intrinsic but exploited part of Australia’s workforce. 

In April 1967, the Gurindji moved their camp to Daguragu (Wattie Creek). The change in location was a symbolic shift away from the cattle station and closer to sacred sites, moving the strike beyond wages and work conditions to focus on land rights. It increased national discussion of First Nations land rights and heightened public understanding surrounding the realities of Australia’s colonial injustice. 

The campaign grew traction and was supported by people across Australia. And in 1974, after 8 years of strike and protest action, the Gurindji people were given title for part of the Wave Hill property. This was immortalised when Prime Minister Whitlam came to Daguragu and ceremonially poured a handful of soil into Vincent Lingiari’s hand. 

The Wave Hill Walk-Off was a key moment in the timeline of fighting for First Nations land and workers’ rights. It inspired national change. 

6 years later, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy formed becoming the longest running protest site in the world. Fights for equal wages for Aboriginal workers as well as a new land rights act in 1976 that allowed for Native Title claims began to take real movement. 

Fun Facts

Gurindji Freedom Day Festival is held annually in Kalkarindji to pay respect to and celebrate the achievements. The events inspired the iconic protest song ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’ by Paul Kelly & The Messengers.

Steven holding his child smiling in front of a lake

Vincent Lingiari with a plaque marking the handing over in Wattie Creek, Northern Territory, 16 August 1975. 

Photo: National Archives of Australia A8598, AK6/5/80/17


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