Celebrating the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin

July 17, 2006

BILLY Bunter Jampijinpa walked off Wave Hill cattle station 40 years ago but he remembers the historic event as if it were yesterday.

"It was the day we walked out of the darkness into the light," he says.

Mr Jampijinpa is one of the few Aboriginal stockmen still alive who walked off the Lord Vesty-owned station on August 23, 1966, in what turned out to be the beginning of Australia's land rights movement.

As his Gurindji people and other clans in the remote communities of Kalkaringi and Daguragu, 800 kilometres south of Darwin, prepare to commemorate and celebrate the 40th anniversary at a two-day festival, Mr Jampijinpa, now 56, and the other surviving stockmen want to tell their stories so they will never be forgotten.

"We were treated like dogs," he says. "We were lucky to get paid the 50 quid a month we were due, and we lived in humpies you had to crawl in and out of on your knees. There was no running water, the food was bad — just flour, tea, sugar and bits of beef like the head or feet of a bullock."

Another survivor, Mick (Hoppy) Rangiari, says everyone is welcome at the Freedom Festival on August 18 and 19.

"A lot of people been passed away," he says. "I been one bloke just left and I start to think that a lot of people need to get that story. We will give them that story."

Clan elders are disappointed that federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough has declined their invitation to attend the festival, which they regard as the most important event held on their land since the historic walk-off.

But former prime minister Gough Whitlam, who turned 90 last week and is too frail to travel, will deliver a speech via video to the people who fondly call him Jungarni, or "that big man".

On August 16, 1975, Mr Whitlam poured a handful of soil from the Daguragu land into the outstretched palm of Vincent Lingiari, in a gesture signifying the handing back of 3236 square kilometres of ancestral land, the final chapter in the Gurindjis nine-year fight.

Mr Lingiari, the leader of the walk-off who died in 1988, is not being forgotten during the festival, which has the backing of the Northern Territory Government.

A commemorative grave will be built at the site where he is buried, which is now marked only by a star picket.

Daguragu Council chief executive officer Mike Freeman says the festival also aims to provide work, opportunities and activities for the 700 or so indigenous people living in the area.

"We plan to develop tourism and the community is talking about opening up spectacular areas that have never been open before, like gorges with amazing rock art," he says.

The Australian National Heritage Council has approved an application for heritage listing of the 18-kilometre route used by the 600 Aboriginal stockmen and their families to walk off Wave Hill station. The application is now with federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell.

Mr Jampijinpa remembers those who made the walk: "Not only stockmen but young people, old people all carrying their swags, billy cans, tucker on their backs, with the babies piled on top — 11 miles we walked."

The festival will include cultural events and performances by at least eight indigenous bands. The NT Administrator, singer Ted Egan, says that when Vincent Lingiari led the walk-off he put the words "land rights" into the Australian vernacular.

"When the definitive history of Australia is written, there will be many prime ministers who won't rate a single line but the name Vincent Lingiari will be there," Mr Egan says.

back