WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

south-east around Lake Gregory (Paraku), some Aboriginal groups continued to live
in the bush until the 1950s (Jebb 2002).
During the wet season, work would often slow on the stations, and some managers
would stop providing basic rations, though many would send workers off on holidays
with some rations. Many Aboriginal people could return to the bush at this time of
year, to take part in ceremonies and other community activities (Jebb and Allbrook
2009). The wet season break gave people 'opportunities to pass onto their children
skills and knowledge at many levels, as hunting and gathering was also an expression
of spiritual attachment to land with many complex meanings' (Young and Doohan
quoted in Smith 2000). However this occurred only at the discretion of the white boss:
some station workers were not given time off at all, or had their holidays shortened
regardless of their desire to join friends and family in the bush.
A Kimberley station manager informed a Royal Commission in 1928: 'If our native
labour were done away with we should have to walk out of the country. We depend
on our native labour and we find it dependable' (Bolton 1953). Despite the crucial role
Aboriginal people played in the industry, they continued to receive few of the
allowances or rights enjoyed by their non-Indigenous co-workers. In the period
following the Second World War, people from outside the region would become
increasingly concerned by the lack of wages and the poor living conditions that were
common on northern stations. The evolution of the station system had created a
delicate situation: in lieu of paying wages, station owners had taken on the
responsibility for providing rations to their workers and to the larger family groups
that lived on the station. The government was concerned that any attempts to enforce
stricter wages and conditions would result in thousands of local people being thrown
off stations and onto government welfare. An agreement was reached in 1940 that
there would be no government interference in pastoral wages, and that station hands
would be 'discouraged' by police and protectors from leaving their employment, in
return for pastoralists continuing to look after all station people, regardless of their
status as employees (Biskup 1973). By 1954, Western Australia was the only state to
retain penal sanctions for breach of an employment contract (Biskup 1973).
Missions and institutions
The structure of work in the pastoral and pearling industries dictated daily and
seasonal rhythms of life for many Kimberley Aboriginal people. Over time, most of
those who were not working in these industries came to live in institutions such as
missions, government reserves or settlements. Missions began to be established in the
west Kimberley from 1884, and were resisted in some areas. However as European
settlement expanded, Aboriginal people took whatever option best allowed them to
stay on their traditional land: missions initially attracted those people whose country
they were established on, but over time other groups joined voluntarily or
involuntarily, as independent living became harder, or when missions were relocated
onto their country (Crawford 2001).
The first Aboriginal mission in the west Kimberley was the Point Cunningham
Catholic mission (Goodenough Bay) on King Sound. It was short-lived, lasting only
from 1884 to 1887, partly because of Aboriginal people's fear of being 'blackbirded'
by the pearl operators who were active in the area at that time, but also as a result of
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