WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

Affairs Department was set up and initiated assimilationist practices, including the
transfer of functions to mainstream departments and handing over government
institutions to Christian missions. In the Northern Territory and Western Australia
there was a steady increase in the number of missions and reserves in the period
between first settlement and the 1960s (DEH 2004).
In the final phase of missions following the 1967 referendum, legislative
responsibility for Aboriginal people, and hence their dealings with missions, was vested
in the Commonwealth. Around this time, the majority of missions were closed either
by governments revoking the reserve, or the missionary body leaving for a variety of
reasons. Titles were often handed over to Indigenous communities to run via
governing bodies such as Community Councils. Some former missions like Beagle
Bay, Lombardina and Mowunjum are now managed by their respective Aboriginal
communities.
A Departmental thematic study An approach to identifying National Heritage
significance for missions and reserves in Australia, (DEH 2004) considered the
National Heritage potential of a range of missions and Government institutions. The
study identified the fabric of the Sacred Heart Church at Beagle Bay mission as the
only place in the west Kimberley that might have outstanding heritage value to the
nation. Moola Bulla near Halls Creek was also identified in the study for possible
national significance under criterion (a) as the first self-contained native settlement set
up to isolate and train full descent Aboriginal children for the cattle industry.
Aboriginal children from outside the Kimberley region were also sent there (DEH
2004). However, Moola Bulla is located outside of the west Kimberley National
Heritage study boundary. Submissions from the Kimberley Land Council (2009,
2010) note the important colonising role of missions in the west Kimberley and that
they had a significant impact on Kimberley Aboriginal people, but they do not
provide specific evidence to support a claim that the mission history of this region is
outstanding compared to other similar histories across Australia.
While the missions and reserves of the west Kimberley may be significant at the
State, regional and local levels, nationally they are below threshold under
criterion (a) for their importance in the course, or pattern of Australia's cultural
history.
Bungarun (the Derby leprosarium) - the only extant facility to tell the national story
of leprosy treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia's cultural history
Bungarun is the Aboriginal name used by Kimberley Aboriginal people from across
the region for the Derby Leprosarium, a total isolation facility that operated between
1936 and 1986 to treat Aboriginal leprosy sufferers. Over the fifty years of its
operation, at least 1,400 Aboriginal people were isolated at the leprosarium, and at its
peak in the 1950s, there were more than 500 patients. There are very few members of
the older generation of Kimberley Aboriginal people who have not had some contact
with Bungarun, either as an inmate or as a relation of an inmate who died or was sent
there for isolation. Many of those who were sent to Bungarun subsequently died there
without ever returning to their traditional country. The Traditional Owners of the place
are recognised as the Warrwa language speakers (Jebb and Allbrook 2009).
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