Australian
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Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Willigan (also known as Jo Ross), the Aboriginal employment officer at Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia, and Kevin Oscar, another local man, recounting the recent history of the Indigenous people of the area. Both men discuss the effects of award wages granted to Indigenous workers on pastoral properties in the 1960s and the later handing back of traditional lands to the original owners. The clip ends with footage of preparations for a corroboree and includes some didgeridoo music.

Educational value points

• The clip reveals that Indigenous people in the Kimberley region of WA were dispossessed of their land in the late 1800s and forced from it in the 1960s; from the 1970s they have recovered parts of it. The first dispossession occurred when pastoralists moved in with cattle herds beginning in the 1860s. The second dislocation followed the award-wage decision of 1966 and the recovery of some land began in 1972.

• Until 1968 Indigenous people were able to maintain some contact with their country by living and working on cattle stations and moving around and caring for country in the wet season when pastoral work was in abeyance. In 1968, however, the 1966 decision of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to grant award wages to Aboriginal pastoral workers came into effect. Unwilling or unable to pay, pastoralists forced the people to leave their properties.

• As described by Willigan and Oscar, the people’s eviction from the cattle stations was a terrible blow that forced them into camps outside towns or onto missions such as the one at Fitzroy Crossing, which was operated by the United Aborigines Mission. Lack of employment, loss of access to their country and overcrowded conditions with disparate language groups in close proximity exacerbated their distress.

• Both Willigan and Oscar discuss the benefits of local Indigenous language groups regaining access to traditional lands by acquiring cattle-station leases. In 1972, after the election of the Whitlam Labor government, funds were allocated to ‘buy back’ pastoral properties to enable Indigenous people to care for their country, earn income and reinforce cultural integrity. Since then government funds have been used to purchase more than 70 pastoral properties.

• Willigan’s Fitzroy (2000) was produced by the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), which was established in 1980 to promote Indigenous culture, language, dance and music and to provide training and employment opportunities for Indigenous people. CAAMA includes a film and television production company, radio network, recording studios and a record label, and is a major shareholder in the Alice Springs-based Imparja Television.

Some kids are playing a makeshift game of cricket on a dusty road. Willigan is interviewed.
Willigan Fitzroy Crossing was established in I think around about the late 1800s. It was initially for all pastoral – it was a big pastoral region around here. Most of our old people used to live out on (inaudible) Spring Station and Leopold Downs, Fairfield, and a lot of the properties. Then in the late ‘60s, they brought in award wages and it wasn’t known then just what the impact of that decision of when they told all the managers they had to start paying people, set a ration, shirt and trouser and shoes, boots. They had to start paying award wages. A lot of the stations couldn’t bear the cost of looking after 100 to 200 people, so they removed a lot of those people into town.

Kevin Oscar is being interviewed, leaning on a gate outside a property.
Kevin Oscar From what I’ve known about Fitzroy Crossing, from my childhood days, it used to be a post office, pub, a police station and a reserve. And a church. You know, missionary church, UAM mission. Now they’ve got – people used to – when people were told to get off pastoral properties back in ‘68 or whenever, and people just migrated into town and camped up on the side of the river and ended up at the church ground on the mission, and eventually they ended up with big communities like (inaudible).

Willigan is being interviewed by a stream.
Willigan And it was in this time that the greatest trauma for a lot of our people, they were brought in off their traditional lands, brought together in close proximity on the old mission, and with that came a lot of social unrest, access to the hotel and that. And then around about ‘80s to mid ‘80s, late ‘80s, 1980s, the government started buying back a lot of pastoral properties on behalf of the language groups.

Kevin Oscar Oh, yeah. Everyone was quite happy to see – getting back their land and where they come from. Yeah, they’re very happy. We’ve got four communities situated on the pastoral lease at present. There’s quite a few activities in the community area, things like hunting, fishing and looking after the stories and sites and whatever.

Preparations for a corroboree are underway. A group of boys are waiting expectantly. A man plays the didgeridoo.
Boy 1 Yeah, I’m ready.
Boy 2 You ready? All you boys ready or what?
Boy 3 Yeah.
Boy 4 We’re not ready yet.
Boy 2 Are you ready or not?
Boy 4 I’m not ready.