Gurindji walk off Wave Hill

23 August 1966

In 1966 Vincent Lingiari, a Gurindji elder, led First Nations workers and their families off Wave Hill station in the Northern Territory to protest poor wages and conditions. The walk-off soon turned into a struggle for land rights and self-determination. It is celebrated as the first significant demonstration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples claims to their traditional lands.

Gurindji and other Aboriginal stockmen and domestic workers employed at Wave Hill received meagre wages and lived in appalling conditions. Although the station was on the Gurindji’s traditional land, it was owned by the British firm Vesteys and located on land leased from the Australian Government. The strikers set up camp at Daguragu – also known as Wattie Creek – and were supported by individuals and groups around the country. They raised awareness of the Gurindji’s story of inequality and dispossession.

In 1975 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam went to Daguragu to hand back nearly 3,300 square kilometres of land to the Gurindji. He poured Daguragu soil into Vincent Lingiari’s outstretched hand to symbolise that ‘this land will be the possession of you and your children forever’. The Gurindji people were the first Aboriginal people to be granted leasehold title to their traditional lands.