1946 Pilbara Strike - Working Conditions For Aboriginal Pastoral Workers

Working Conditions For Aboriginal Pastoral Workers

For many years Aboriginal pastoral workers in the Pilbara were denied cash wages and were only paid in supplies of tobacco, flour and other necessities. The pastoral stations treated the Aboriginal workers as a cheap slave labour workforce to be exploited. If they tried to leave the station, they were found and brought back by the police, according to McLeod.

European attacks and brutal shootings of whole family groups of indigenous Australians are part of the history of the region, though often not well documented. One attack took place at Skull Creek near Barrow Creek in the 1870s, which resulted in the bleached bones and thus the name for the place . There is a well documented account of a massacre in 1926 by a police party on the Forrest River Mission (now the Aboriginal community of Oombulgurri), in the East Kimberleys. Though there was a Royal commission into the killing and burning of Aborigines in East Kimberley, none of the police responsible were ever brought to trial and convicted. (see List of massacres of indigenous Australians).

As well as proper wages and better working conditions, Aboriginal lawmen sought natural justice arising from the original Western Australian colonial Constitution. As a condition for self-rule in the colony, the British Government insisted that once public revenue in WA exceeded 500,000 pounds, 1 per cent was to be dedicated to "the welfare of the Aboriginal natives" under Section 70 of the Constitution. Succeeding colonial and state Governments legislated to remove the funding provisions for 'native welfare'. Aboriginal plaintiffs from Strelley Station finally commenced an action in the State Supreme Court in 1994, seeking a declaration that the 1905 repeal was invalid. In 2001, after protracted litigation, the High Court held that the 1905 repeal had been legally effective .