Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Joanne Garngulkpuy and Yolgnu Studies lecturer John Greatorex, who explain why some 'long-grassers’, the term given to Indigenous people camping or living rough in Darwin, come to the city. The clip opens with Garngulkpuy giving some of the personal reasons why they come. Then Greatorex provides a further explanation by referring to the history of missions on a map of the Top End of Australia. Another map shows some of the settlements in Arnhem Land. Footage of homeless men in Darwin’s public spaces follows.

Educational value points

• The centrality of the issue of land and dispossession to the phenomenon of Indigenous people camping out in Darwin’s public spaces is conveyed in the clip. Dispossession from land preceded Indigenous peoples being brought together in mission settlements, and meant a loss of identity and culture as they lost connection with their country.

• As described in the clip the centralisation of Indigenous people away from their traditional lands into missions was done with no recognition that they came from different clans and spoke different languages, which sometimes led to conflicts between the traditional owners of mission land and the newcomers who were far from their own country. Seeking to escape conflict, many of the 'disenfranchised’ left for Darwin, where some were stigmatised as being 'homeless’.

• The clip provides a range of perspectives in the discussion of the long-grassers. Joanne Garngulkpuy, who works at Yalu Marngithinyaraw Nurturing Centre in the Galiwin’ku community on Elcho Island, suggests that being a long-grasser is a fluid state that provides space away from the complexities of life in the home community. John Greatorex, as an academic, sympathetically discusses the issues of displacement in terms of history, using maps as examples.

• The clip refers to the history of mission settlements in the Northern Territory. By the early 1930s there were seven church-run missions operating in the NT, including Yirrkala on the Gove Peninsula and one on Elcho Island. Through the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976, ownership and control of these missions was automatically converted to the traditional owners of the land. Independent elected councils manage the day-to-day affairs of the communities.

• The subject of the television program 'Message stick – The Long-grassers’ is the phenomenon of Indigenous homelessness in Darwin, but it also reports that homelessness in the NT was the highest in the country. According to the 2001 census, there were 2,658 homeless people in Darwin out of a total population of 100,000, with 802 of these being Indigenous people. More than 800 homeless were living 'rough’, and 440 of them were Indigenous people.

Joanne is interviewed.
Joanne Garngulkpuy, Yalu Marngithinyaraw Nurturing Centre There are many reasons why people leave Galiwin’ku and they settle in Darwin because there’s too much problem at Elcho too. They miss their family and also they don’t want to be at Galiwin’ku, they want to find a new start and sometimes they – they just want to be here to and visit here and then go back to Elcho.

John is interviewed. Whilst talking he points to a map on the wall, indicating the places he is talking about. A map of the Top End is also displayed on screen.
John Greatorex, Yolgnu Studies lecturer When the mission started up here at Elcho or at Milingimbi or Ramingining or Yirrkala they moved in and there were people – all these people – different clans, different languages, different estates – when they moved and were centralised into the mission, into the settlement, they were living on someone else’s land. They, of course, not being of that land don’t have a say in where the houses go or what jobs they get. Of course they would go to the landowners and that’s what happens in these townships like Elcho. Most people are disenfranchised from their own land and they’re not connected to that land and so disputes and conflicts arise and then people will move away into Darwin and become long-grassers in Darwin.