NT: Wave Hill people still searching for equality

AAP General News (Australia)
08-21-2000
NT: Wave Hill people still searching for equality

By Rod McGuirk

DAGURAGU, NT, August 20 AAP - Thirty-four years after the Gurinji people walked off
Wave Hill cattle station in an historic strike over appalling living and working conditions,
their dream of equality today remains elusive.

When tribal leader Vincent Lingiari led 250 Aboriginal stockmen and their families
from one of the Northern Territory's largest stations, owned by the British Vesteys group,
on August 23, 1966, he effectively triggered the modern land rights movement.

It has been 25 years since the Gurinji recorded Australia's first land rights victory
- the culmination of almost a decade of national lobbying.

The then prime minister Gough Whitlam poured a handful of sand into Mr Ligiari's hand
on the site of the Daguragu community on August 16, 1975, symbolically handing to the
displaced traditional owners 1,250 square miles of the former Wave Hill pastoral lease.

In annual celebrations this weekend to mark the Gurinji's achievements, Mr Lingiari's
son Victor Vincent and elder Billy Bunter reminded their young people of the privations
of the past - highlighting the absence of running water on the station and the humpies
they had relied on for shelter.

But a recent health survey of the Daguragu and neighbouring Kalkaringi communities
revealed that their 600 inhabitants remain significantly disadvantaged despite a quarter
of a century of self-determination.

Half the population do not have access to hot water or a washing machine and 40 per
cent of houses lack a working toilet, the survey by the Katherine West Health Board found.

The board's environmental health officer Bill Hardy, who conducted the survey, said
65 per cent of the complaints treated at the community health clinic were related to overcrowding
and inadequate hygene.

"The main reason for going to the clinic is skin infections (30 per cent) - scabies,
and that is particularly related to the availability of water and being able to wash your
clothes," Mr Hardy told AAP.

"Most of these people are on social security, they have big families, they're in an
impoverished situation and can't afford the basic things that the rest of Australia takes
for granted."

Overcrowding wears houses out early and getting adequate maintenance for a community
450km from Katherine poses a major problem.

"Instead of a family per house, you get a family per bedroom," Mr Hardy said.,

"Sometimes it's by choice, other times they're forced to share.

"This overcrowding has an impact on all the common ailments of skin and respiratory
problems as well as diarrhoea and vomiting."

But the environmental health problems are being addressed. The Northern Territory government
has committed $1,700 a year for each house for maintenance.

The community has established electrical, plumbing and building teams to support visiting
tradesmen with maintenance work.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission through its $40million environmental
health strategy agreed this year to replace the two-bedroom steel shelters that have been
commonplace at Daguragu for years.

"They call them houses but they're two bedroom steel sheds, often with no facilities,"

Mr Hardy said.

"There's no shower, no toilet; just a concrete floor, lights and power.

"Imagine living in a steel shed with the heat and the cold out here."

The board's director Marion Scrymgour, who is responsible for about 3,000 people living
in remote communities stretched from 80km west of Katherine to the West Australian border,
said the Gurinji had come a long way in the past two years in taking responsibility for
their own health.

"There's been a major shift in them now wanting health education in the schools and
stores have changed dramatically since we started working with them three years ago in
terms of stocking fresh fruit and vegetables," she said.

The community has also had a full-time general practitioner for the past year rather
than a twice weekly visit by a doctor.

Mr Hardy agreed his board with making headway in establishing health facilities and
in public health measures.

But growing families were making environmental health an uphill battle.

"We can't build enough houses to cover the increase in population," he said.

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