WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

'Perhaps most significantly, station work was in many ways compatible with cultural
and traditional activities. Aboriginal people working on pastoral stations were able to
live on, travel around and take care of their traditional lands. Stockmen 'were
strategically placed to ensure a continuing say about disturbance to particular sites in
their country'. (WA Department of Primary Industry 2008)
* * * *
Some Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory trace their ancestry and rights to
other places. This is comparable to the situation in the Kimberley, with the movement
of desert people from the south into the pastoral industry in the Fitzroy catchment and
beyond, Aboriginal people across the north adapted to the movement imposed by
pastoralism by incorporating more distant relations within their closer kin
relationships (Allbrook and Jebb 2009; Rose 1991).
Smith (2000) provides a basis for comparative analysis of the pastoral industry across
the north of Australia that highlights the poor living conditions and harsh treatment of
Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Kimberley and Northern Territory. A 1951
Commonwealth survey shows that rations were the principal payment for Aboriginal
work in both regions; these were hugely deficient and this situation did not improve
for twenty years, even after minimum standards were introduced nationally in 1952
(Smith 2000, 80-92). Comparatively speaking, work and living conditions in the
Northern Territory were 'no better, nor worse than those upon other stations through
the Territory and East and West Kimberley' (Rose 1991, 145).
From the 1960s, new government payments and pensions for Aboriginal workers
were paid directly to station bosses. Like the previous ration system, these payments
ensured a dependent workforce and were open to abuse. In some instances payments
supplemented the incomes of stations and made it more profitable to have dependants
than employees (Rose 1991; Jebb 2002).
Equal wages for Aboriginal pastoral workers was legislated nationally in 1969,
although this was not fully implemented in the Kimberley until 1972. For Aboriginal
pastoral workers nationally, this decision led to the majority of Aboriginal people
voluntarily or involuntarily leaving pastoral stations. In the north for a variety of
reasons, some people left immediately, as occurred at Wave Hill in the Northern
Territory, while others left later, for example, at Victoria River Downs and Humbert
River in the Northern Territory in 1972 and Mt Elizabeth Station in the Kimberley in
1995 (Allbrook and Jebb 2009, Bird Rose 1991). Many workers feared and some
were threatened, that if they left the stations on their traditional lands, they would not
be able to return (Allbrook and Jebb 2009, Rose 1991).
In 1972, the Commonwealth Government purchased Panter Downs (Pantijan) in the
north Kimberley, vesting this station with the Mowanjum Community, followed by
Noonkanbah in 1976. 'Many Aboriginal people in the Kimberley continue to identify
as 'station people' and have a strong sense of identity and ongoing relationship with
pastoral stations as owners and managers' (Allbrook and Jebb 2009). Today,
approximately 25 per cent of Kimberley pastoral stations are held by Aboriginal
interests (KLC 2009).
128