The forty year anniversary of the equal wage decision for Northern Territory Aboriginal stockworkers has revived criticism of the decision from historians on the right and the left historians. Both groups lament the good old days before 1966 when Aboriginal stockworkers were continuously employed and able to live on their land with their kin. These workers, who had created profits for the industry even in periods of drought and depression, were expelled in the immediate aftermath of the decision.

The “right” blames the decision for unnecessarily regulating a functional labour market that provided reciprocal benefits for employers and Aboriginal workers. The “left” complains that the decision was introduced too slowly (with its full impact in the 1970s when the Pastoral Award came into effect), allowing multinational corporations - such as Vestey’s - ample opportunity to lay off their workers before it took effect.

Neither group faces up to the reality that the pre-1996 “glory days” of cattle stations were contingent on a complex set of factors that could be regarded as feudal in character. First, the industry was labour intensive - it ran on the back of a horse - and required large numbers of skilled workers who could navigate the land. Second, Aboriginal workers were able to maintain connections to their land. Workers and their kin could live on stations with their subsistence provided. Their ties with country were deepened by their capacity to go walkabout in the wet season, a privilege granted to them when labour was in low demand. And third, government regulations authorised managers to offset wages against the maintenance of Aboriginal workers’ dependants. Families were provided for, in a manner, on the cattle stations. This created a mutually beneficial relationship where coexistence suited both parties. But it was nonetheless a relationship of exploitation.

Absolved of its protection responsibilities by the Aboriginal and Welfare Ordinances, the government was complicit in the exploitation. The requirement that station owners provide shelter, food, clothing and medical attention was never effectively policed, prompting anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt to describe the government’s oversight as “nominal and superficial”.

Consequently, conditions for “dependants” on the stations were so bad that a patrol officer in 1940s and 50s, Ted Evans, described them as a “hazard to the health of Aboriginals”. Amenities were scarce. Many “dependants” were made to work on the station homestead or maintain the station property by undertaking fencing, gardening, building roads and attending to dairy cattle.

When wages were eventually introduced after the second world war, cash was rarely seen on stations. Recently some historians, including Glen McLaren and William Cooper, have disputed the view that stockworkers were not granted wages. They rely on records of the Northern Territory Pastoral Lessees Association to argue that workers were paid fairly and sometimes on par with non-Aboriginal workers. McLaren and Cooper overlook the fact that wages were often paid in the form of store credits, such that workers had to purchase basic commodities from the station. At the Vestey’s-owned Victoria River Downs Station, prices in the station store were inflated by up to 300 per cent.

The current Senate inquiry into Aboriginal stolen wages has brought to the public’s attention the conditions of Aboriginal workers, including those on cattle stations. It has attracted submissions that point to the unwaged conditions on stations and the lack of workers’ compensation for work-related injuries. Violations of legislation and international conventions have also been alleged.

Significant changes took place on stations in the 1960s, with the result that stations were no longer able or willing to accommodate Aboriginal community needs. The equal wages decision was just one factor in a range of transformations. Work practices were changing with the introduction of aerial and motorised mustering. Government policy made it harder for employers to offset wages by maintaining dependants on stations. On top of that, a severe drought and the worldwide recession in the 1970s deflated beef prices.

McLaren and Cooper and others have conflated the Gurindji strike (which demanded fair working conditions and land) with the end of cattle station life for Aboriginal workers. They dismiss the strike’s objects and victories. They fail to consider the complexity of change, including the conscious decision of managers to respond to new conditions by laying off workers. The alternative, to maintain a sustainable labour intensive industry that drew on Aboriginal skills, rather than the environmentally destructive technologies, would have represented too much of a compromise for managers in the relationship of coexistence.

Nonetheless, the Gurindji people were aware that their future not only hinged on wages and the needs of managers. The Aboriginal communities required a continuous association with the land. This demand is portrayed in the lyrics of Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody’s song, From Big Things Little Things Grow:

Vestey man said I’ll double your wages
Seven quid a week you'll have in your hand
Vincent said uhuh we’re not talking about wages
We’re sitting right here till we get our land

While the victory of the Gurindji strike is symbolised by the sand pouring from Gough Whitlam’s hands into Vincent Lingiari’s, it was Malcom Fraser’s government that passed the Land Rights Act 1976. But the Act excluded Aboriginal claims for pastoral leases, so the land that Aboriginal people had worked could not be used as their own.

The Gurindji people did establish the momentum for the productive involvement of Aboriginal people in their land. Land councils and land corporations emerged from the 1960s land rights movement and are now pioneering Aboriginal-run stations with the support of the Northern Territory government. This is one of the legacies of the Gurindji strike and the historic contribution of Aboriginal stockworkers.

Forty years on from the equal wage decision, now should be a time of constructive reflection of the demands and achievements of the Gurindji people. Aboriginal workers were a casualty of the changing conditions on stations and decisions of station managers that rendered their employment incompatible with station profits. The equal wage decision was the last nail in the coffin. It reveals, if nothing else, that the future of Aboriginal Australians requires control of their own destinies - which the Gurindji people recognised - involving both labour and land.