Land Rights

One of the most memorable assignments I covered for the National Times Newspaper was a land rights protest in 1981.

This was not just joining a mob of angry and frustrated people at the foot of old Parliament House for an afternoon. I joined the protest in Alice Springs : the idea was to cover the journey to Canberra and see it through to the protest.

I joined the mob of elderly stockmen and their relatives in a car park in Alice Springs.

It was a cold and crunchy morning. The Stockmen, dressed in their best, were off to talk to the Prime Minister. They had been squatting on stock routes for over ten years waiting to hear if they would be given the land.

I thought the trip would take a few days, camping out and moving on in a direct drive to Canberra. It took six days : we meandered through the country. In moments of my own frustration I would race up to driver with the road map and show him a more direct route. I was missing the point : the trip was as important as getting to Canberra.

I finally sat back and listened as the old blokes pointed out a slight rise in the land here and an expanse of water there ; part of someone’s dreaming more meaningful than the remnants of white settlement I had been pointing out days earlier. I also learnt how it felt to be treated as almost invisible in your own land. Stopping for food in some small country towns, we would always be served last, given sideward glances.

The protest, when it happened, was a loud and passionate affair, politicians trotted out and promised to do something. Years later when I checked in with some of the people from the trip, nothing had changed.