Vincent Lingiari
Vincent Lingiari ( b. 1908; † 21 January 1988) was a political activist for the rights of Aborigines, who was honored for his achievements with the Order of Australia. He was a member of the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory, in the district of Victoria River. Lingiari leads to the Gurindji strike, which is also called Wave Hill walk-off. This strike was reached, that the country's Gurundji was returned by the Commonwealth of Australia.
Wave Hill Walk -Off
The Wave Hill Cattle Station, which is located 600 kilometers south of Darwin in the Northern Territory, was operated in the late 19th century by the British Agricultural Society Vesteys. Vesteys employed Gurindji at Wave Hill. The working conditions were for Aboriginal compared to non- Aboriginal extremely poor and wages very low.
In 1966, Lingiari, a Kadijeri Aborigines worked at Wave Hill as a drover and as after a hospital stay in Darwin back, he led the employees of Wave Hill on 22 August 1966 in their protest against the working and wage conditions.
As had been put there criminal charges over several years by workers of the Aborigines about the conditions at Wave Hill, including an investigation during the 1930s, which criticized the work practices of Vesteys, the walk-off focused on a bigger goal than just to Vesteys from.
Until the year 1968 it was forbidden to be paid to workers Aboriginal more than a certain amount of money and hand over the goods. In many cases favored the government settler societies, to whose accounts einzahlte the money and not directly to the Aborigines.
The protesters established the Wattie Creek Camp and demanded the return of some of their ancestral land. Thus, the long -year-long struggle of the Gurindji to a legal title to their land began.
Land Rights Act
The strike at Wave Hill endangered relations between Aboriginal and other communities and although he started out as an action for workers' rights, he soon became a central federal matter, as the Gurindji demanding their traditional land rights.
The strike lasted for eight years and in that time, the support grew for Aboriginal rights and the struggle intensified. Maybe he eventually led the Commonwealth country Rights Act was passed in the Northern Territory 1976. This act gave the Aborigines a property title to traditional lands in the Northern Territory and, remarkably, a remedy against mining and development of these areas. The size of their traditional lands was about 3250 square kilometers, of which they received back in 1295 square kilometers.
A significant and symbolic event in Australian history - during an emotional ceremony in 1975 - was the handing over of local sand by the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in the hands of Vincent Lingiari as he returned the Wave Hill station to the Gurindji.
Wave Hill Walk Off Route
On 9 August 2007, the Australian Federal Government introduced by Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, the Wave Hill Walks Off Route under national monument on the Australian National Heritage List. It is an area of about 300 hectares between Wave Hill Homestead and Daguragu.
The Australian Government ( Commonwealth ) said in its statement that this area was the first country that the Commonwealth has returned to the Aborigines, which documented the right of Aboriginal people to their identity, traditions and land.
Vincent's Site
Vincent Lingiari died on 21 January 1988. Every year before he took part in the annual walk-off event to mark the land restitution to the Gurindji.
Vincent Lingiari was a leader and a cultural authority for the Gurindji. His fight for the rights of that Aboriginal people made him the trustee and Eigentumsverwahrer their country. His performances for their rights, culture and language made him a national icon.
Vincent Lingiari went into confrontation to an enormous economic and political power, the depwoyed against him and the Gurindji. When he undertook this, he won a victory in the history, the practice for the recognition of Aborigines, their general rights and acknowledgment of their land rights, their ability, law, language and culture, has great significance.
The second largest Australian voters county is named for Lingiari. The Division of Lingiari covers almost the entire Northern Territory, as well as Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands. Furthermore, there is the director Patrick Dodson was honored in 2008 with the Sydney Peace Prize a Lingiari Foundation.
Since 1996, Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lectures are organized, occurred where, for example, Sir William Deane (1996 ), Patrick Dodson (1999 ), Malcolm Fraser ( 2000).
The story of Vincent Lingiari is represented in the song From Little Things Big Things Grow, which is Paul Kelly wrote and played and sung by a musician Kev Carmody Aboriginal.