Land Rights Act
Forty years ago this weekend, a group of Aboriginal workers on a remote cattle station walked out on their employers and began what was the first indigenous demand for land rights. Incredibly, those protestors on that remote station gradually caught the attention of all of Australia and nine years later came the historic moment when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam poured a handful of earth into Gurindji leader Vincent Lingiari’s hands. Not only did the Gurindji people get freehold title to their land, but it led to the Commonwealth Land Rights Act, giving all indigenous Territorians freehold title to traditional lands. Rob Wesley Smith was a young scientist in 1966, living in a research station south of Darwin and he explain how he found himself caught up in the Wave Hill saga