WERE ABORIGINAL STOCKMEN UNDERPAID?

THE ROLE OF ABORIGINES in the northern pastoral industry has become a highly contentious question. Historians such as Ann McGrath (Born in the Cattle) and Dawn May (Aboriginal Labour and the Cattle Industry), sociologist Frank Stevens (Aborigines in the Northern Territory Pastoral Industry) and anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt (End of an Era) have brought home the often appalling abuse, suffering and exploitation endured by so many Aborigines. Other less formal works such as Paul Marshall's Raparapa have reinforced this message. May's work is particularly outstanding, for in a factual and unemotive manner she has portrayed the role of Aborigines in Queensland's industry from the earliest days until the 1990s. As she points out:

 
   It is ... essential to strip away myth, misconception and myopia so that 
   the current discussions can proceed in a rational manner. We must remove 
   our blinkers to allow a fuller account of Aboriginal history to unfold. 

Nevertheless, it is clear that historians cannot hope to prevent their natural sympathies intruding. In this light it is notable that in the last three decades few academics have attempted to present the pastoralists' point of view. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that cattlemen, particularly Territorians, have often been inaccurately and unfairly portrayed. This is not a recent phenomenon. As early as 1927 one Northern Territory Pastoral Lessees' Association (NTPLA) member wrote:

 
   The allegations regarding ill-treatment of Aboriginals in North Australia, 
   which appear in the Southern Press from time to time, I consider is 
   becoming a serious matter. These allegations invariably emanate from 
   persons whose knowledge of the North and the Aboriginals is limited and who 
   are more concerned with providing sensational "copy" for the press rather 
   than examining the facts. 

Seven years later the NTPLA investigated inaccurate press releases by the Association for the Protection of Native Races and the National Council of Women, and it was:

 
   subsequently ascertained that the press statements were somewhat garbled 
   reports of a deputation [from these bodies] to the Minister for the 
   Interior ... [and] that the charges which had been made were based on 
   hearsay and unreliable data. 

More recently there is incontrovertible evidence arising from a recently completed history of the Northern Territory pastoral industry (Distance, Drought and Dispossession, to be published by NTUP in April) that much of Frank Stevens' work and accompanying media reports of the 1960s and 1970s on such questions as land rights and equal wages were inaccurate and often biased. A case in point is the question of Aboriginal wages. Many academics and lay-persons have claimed the Territory cattle industry was largely built on the unpaid or very poorly paid labour of Aboriginal workers. Ann McGrath, for instance, states that: