The good, the bad and the ugly

One family which owned several stations in the Kimberley region of WA was concerned about the future of Aboriginals, only recently advanced to the level of serfs, if they were forced onto the fringes of towns and within reach of white vices but without any practical skills to adapt. They ceded parts of their leases to the local people, then ceded a little more to allow a government school to operate away from the town, then ceded even larger slabs of their leases, encouraging the state government to step in and provide proper housing.

Thousands of Aboriginals ended up living on the fringes of towns as a result of this wage decision. Without housing or proper amenities or any chance of keeping themselves ‘presentable’, their rejection became complete.

The Kimberley was not only a remote area: For most of the region the sole industry had been the pastoral industry, so there were few towns with any infrastructure at all. Some towns were no more than a general store and a pub.

As happened when Aboriginals were first forced onto reserves or missions, people from different clans and language groups were thrown together on country that was not their own, and the whole of their social fabric was in tatters.

Some station owners forced people off passively, by refusing to give them transport to find firewood, and no longer providing rations or any other assistance.

One station owner waited until ‘his’ Aboriginals were away at a picnic race meeting, bulldozed their humpies and possessions and shot their dogs. When they came back, he simply told them they had 48 hours to clear out.

Needs claims

Many pastoralists moved Aboriginals away from the vicinity their homesteads, onto other sections of their property, ceding a portion of their lease to Aboriginals as ‘needs claims’. This reflected the fact that a lease is not ownership, that Aboriginals were still entitled to stay on their land to live in the manner they always had [allowing for the disappearance of a great deal of their natural food sources or water].

These removals were a physical signal to governments that pastoralists no longer accepted any responsibility for Aboriginals, though it meant that there was still a pool of workers nearby if needed.

Once again, whitefellas get it terribly wrong

As traditional Aboriginal life had adapted so well to station life, the displacements following the equal wages case were almost as destructive in spiritual and cultural terms as the first displacements caused by white settlement.

Perhaps the only difference is that Aboriginals were now less likely to be shot.

Before the equal pay decision, station children were still learning to be traditional Aboriginals with all the freedom, relationships, skills, practices and values of their forebears. They were still valued members of their own community. If moved on as a result of the equal wages decision, the prospect of a future was suddenly snatched away. They were now required to live an alien life, learning about new authority figures, attending white schools, and being restricted in their movements by a whole new set of social assumptions.

For many other Aboriginals unlikely to be ‘hired’ as skilled stockmen - older Aboriginals, women, or mothers - equal wages robbed them of their access to country, and a chance to contribute to their station dwelling community by performing regular tasks such as tending gardens, sweeping, chopping firewood, or passing on laws and traditions which required access to country.

Few skilled Aboriginals were westernised enough to consider being cut off from their own communities, just so they could stay on stations and work for wages.

For all Aboriginals who had lived through the killing times and the worst of the child theft, who had had a [short lived] taste of equality during World War II, the outcome of the equal pay case could only confirm their suspicions there was no place for them in a white world and, if there was, they would be crazy to want it.