WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

The Kimberley Land Council (2010) submission states that Kimberley
Aboriginal people identify strongly with the pastoral industry and that many
families are connected over generations to particular stations. While Aboriginal
workers in the Kimberley pastoral industry were vital to its development and
success, the same is true for the Northern Territory, Queensland and other parts
of Australia. Based on current evidence, Aboriginal involvement in the
Kimberley pastoral industry does not have outstanding heritage value to the
nation under criterion (a).
The Noonkanbah dispute
When Aboriginal people speak about 'Noonkanbah' they are referring to a series of
events which took place on Noonkanbah station between 1978 and 1980. These
events drew the attention of the nation to the struggle of Aboriginal people to protect
their rights to practice traditional law and culture in the face of a resources boom and
a state government's desire to develop its oil and mineral resources. The events at
Noonkanbah helped catalyse significant changes in law, policy and practice
associated with the recognition of Aboriginal people's rights to land and responsible
resource development by governments and companies alike. Noonkanbah 'cannot be
looked upon….as just another episode', but as a 'moment in history' that was a pivot
of change (Hagen 1979 cited by Hawke and Gallagher 1989, 294). 'Symbolically,
before Mabo, Wik and Hindmarsh there was Noonkanbah' (Ritter 2002, 1).
Noonkanbah station is located on the north bank of the Fitzroy River, about 100
kilometres south-west of Fitzroy Crossing. From 1886 when the pastoral lease was
initially taken up, until the early 1970s Aboriginal people supplied the necessary
labour to make the station profitable. Following the Second World War, Aboriginal
people began to leave the station in response to continued low wages and poor
conditions. The introduction of equal wages in the Kimberley brought a further
decline in Aboriginal workforce numbers. In 1972, when the Aboriginal Affairs
Planning Authority Act 1972 (WA) finally lifted all restrictions on the payment of
wages to Aboriginal people, the remaining workers left Noonkanbah to join the
rapidly expanding Aboriginal population in Fitzroy Crossing (Allbrook 2009).
Inspired by the passing of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 and
events such as the Wave Hill Walk Off and the Whitlam government's proposed land
rights legislation, Aboriginal workers from Noonkanbah, Quanbu, Jubilee and
Cherrabun stations formed an alliance to request a return of their traditional lands
(Hawke and Gallagher 1989). After prolonged negotiations, the Commonwealth
handed back Noonkanbah station in 1976 to the Aboriginal Lands Trust which passed
the pastoral lease on to the Yungngora Aboriginal Association. But within two years
of Noonkanbah's return to Aboriginal people, 497 resource exploration claims had
been filed, held by about 30 companies or prospectors, covering a total of nearly
60,000 hectares (about 35 per cent of the station area) (Allbrook 2009).
In May 1978, the Yungngora community learned that Amax, a North American
resource company, was intending to drill an exploration well on the station in the
vicinity of Pea Hill (Umpampurru) 'a powerful malaji centre (increase site) and the
home of a great woman spirit and associated malaji sites…linked by Dreaming tracks
up to ten kilometres west' (Hawke and Gallagher 1989, 121-125; Ritter 2002). The
Yungngora people offered to show Amax alternative sites, but these were refused by
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