What were the protests about in Noonkanbah in 1980?

The Noonkanbah dispute in Western Australia’s remote north put land rights on the national agenda and led to the foundation of the Kimberley Land Council. In 1980, after a two-year stand-off, the Yungngora People and their supporters sat in a dusty Kimberley creek bed, blocking the path of the drilling rigs.

What year did the Noonkanbah dispute happen?

1980
After the trauma of the Noonkanbah dispute in 1980, all the community wanted was for life to get back to normal.

Where is Noonkanbah WA?

Noonkanbah is a homestead just off the Camballin Noonkanbah Road in northeast Western Australia. Its closest capital city is actually Darwin (show me) in the Northern Territory about 930km to the northeast (the capital of Western Australia is Perth (show me), about 1740km away to the south-southwest of Noonkanbah).

What was the noonkanbah protest about?

Noonkanbah was at the time a successful Aboriginal-owned and -run pastoral station. Aboriginal workers at Noonkanbah had walked off the white-owned pastoral station in 1971 to protest against the non-payment of wages and the generally horrific conditions.

When did the tent embassy happen?

26 January 1972
On 26 January 1972 four Indigenous men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House in Canberra. Describing the umbrella as the Aboriginal Embassy, the men were protesting the McMahon government’s approach to Indigenous land rights.

What year was the tent embassy?

1972

When was the Aboriginal tent embassy?

When did Kevin Rudd say sorry?

On 13 February 2008, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd moved a motion of Apology to Indigenous Australians. His apology was a formal apology on behalf of the successive parliaments and governments whose policies and laws “inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians”.

Does the Aboriginal Tent Embassy still exist?

From land rights to Aboriginal deaths in custody But despite being moved on and threatened with closure a number of times, the tent embassy still stands, nearly 50 years later, and is the only Aboriginal site to have been added to the Australian Register of the National Estate.

Does the Aboriginal tent embassy still exist?

Why was the Aboriginal Tent Embassy controversial?

The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permanent protest occupation site as a focus for representing the political rights of Aboriginal Australians….

Why did Rudd say sorry?

When did the Noonkanbah strike start and end?

Workers struck for an incredible 11 million days between 1979 and 1981. Workers in the iron ore sector in the Pilbara region, where some of the Noonkanbah protests took place, were one of the most militant sections of the Australian working class at that time, strongly organised]

What was the significance of the Noonkanbah land dispute?

Although the mining company was able to break through the blockade, their heavy-handedness stoked a groundswell of support for the Yungngora People and helped put Aboriginal land rights on the national agenda. It also led to an inaugural address from the first delegation of Indigenous Australians to the United Nations.

Who was the stockman at Noonkanbah in 1980?

After the trauma of the Noonkanbah dispute in 1980, all the community wanted was for life to get back to normal. Around that time Cox’s wife died. Although he has remarried – his wife Nita is chairman of the school – he brings out a photo of his first wife and himself taken when he was a stockman on Loomah station.

How did the Noonkanbah football team get its name?

A sign at the front gate says Noonkanbah is the home of the Noonkanbah Blues, the Central Kimberley Football League team named after the song written about the community’s struggle. The kids were always bright and fun, but when we stop to speak to a group of teenage girls playing basketball, I realise how savvy they are now too.