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A former member of the Committee for the Defence of Native Rights explains their Committee’s decision to dispatch Church of England minister and Committee Secretary Peter Hodge to give a first hand account of what was happening with the strike in the north of Western Australia. Pastoralist, advocate for Aboriginal rights and strike co-organiser Don McLeod recounts his experience of meeting Hodge and their trip to 12 Mile strike camp to meet the other organisers. Upon their arrival he and Hodge were arrested for unlawfully organising with Aboriginals. Hodge and McLeod took their case to the High Court, which eventually ruled that Aborigines had the right to organise and appoint their own representatives. Despite this outcome, McLeod testifies that laws in the 1980s still deny Aboriginals rights as human beings.
Curator’s notes
When this film was made, both of the Indigenous organisers of the strike, Dooley Bin Bin and Clancy McKenna, had passed away. Don McLeod, who was elected as a representative on behalf of the Indigenous strikers and who worked closely with Dooley and Clancy, recounts the organisational side of the strike and some of the legal wrangling the strikers encountered, as we hear in this clip.
McLeod himself passed away in 1999.
