The Indigenous leader who brought land rights into the spotlight

Indigenous land rights had never been taken too seriously by Australia’s colonisers because they had already grabbed the good bits, the Aboriginal people could have the rest. It was only when valuable minerals were discovered on some of the “rest” that issues of ownership and mining rights became critical.

An issue arose when bauxite was to be mined at Gove, in the Northern Territory. It became a political storm when uranium mining was proposed elsewhere in Arnhem Land. One man, Yunupingu, who became chairman of the Northern Land Council, representing Aboriginal traditional owners of lands ceded to them, handled the storm and reached a satisfactory conclusion. Starting with a petition to the federal parliament challenging the rights of mining companies to exploit traditional Aboriginal territory, he remained at the forefront of one of the greatest battles his people had to fight.

Yunupingu regularly attended the Garma Festival, which he founded with his brother.Credit:Peter Eve/Yothu Yindi Foundation

Yunupingu was born at Melville Bay, near Yirralka, on the Gove Peninsula in north-east Arnhem Land on June 30, 1948, a member of the Gumatj Clan of the Yolngu Nation. His father, Mungurrawuy, was a tribal elder who had 25 children.

The young Yunupingu lived what might be considered an idyllic childhood, speaking his native language, swimming and fishing and playing in the sand. He was 11 years old when he enrolled at the Yirrkala Mission School. He did well and in 1965 the mission school sent him to Brisbane where he began two years of study at the Methodist Bible College. He gained his Higher School Certificate, became a youth leader and recreation officer and returned to Yirrkala as town clerk. But he became aware of deeper stirrings within the Aboriginal community.

In 1966 Aboriginal stockmen walked off the job at Wave Hill Station, demanding the return of some of their traditional lands. Then closer to home, bauxite mining began on a mining lease at Gove. “This is what happened to my country and my father’s country, and my father’s father’s country,” he wrote later. “In the early 1960s, I saw bulldozers rip through our Gumatj country in north-east Arnhem Land. I watched my father stand in front of them to stop them clearing sacred trees and saw him chase away the drivers with an axe. I watched him cry when our sacred waterhole was bulldozed. ”

In 1968, Yunupingu and his father presented a petition written on bark, the Yirrkala Bark Petition, to the federal government, protesting against the ravaging of their land. The petition, the first traditional Aboriginal document received by the Commonwealth parliament, did not stop the mining but nevertheless caused an uproar that led to the appointment of the Woodward royal commission and the eventual recognition of Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory.

Yunupingu with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Garma Festival in 2022.Credit:Melanie Faith Dove/Yothu Yindi Foundation

Yunupingu, who became a Yirrkala town councillor in 1969, followed the issues closely. An attempt by the Yolngu people in 1969 to stop the bauxite mining was unsuccessful but the movement for land rights was growing. Justice Edward Woodward recommended the establishment of two Aboriginal land councils. The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Bill was passed and Yunupingu joined the land council. Similar land council legislation was passed by the territory.

Land councils were established in four regions of the Northern Territory. In 1978 Yunupingu was elected chairman of the Northern Land Council. Not opposed to mining in principle, he saw that, handled properly, it could be of great financial benefit to his people. But he demanded that it was the people who should make the decision.

Uranium mining at Ranger, east of Darwin, came to test him. If there were to be mining, there would have to be royalties. He was the one to make the agreement. Some accused him of selling off Aboriginal lands. Others accused him of being bullied by the government. Still others claimed he would be wrecking the environment. The government appeared to him to be “playing games”.

Stephen Zorn, an American hired to handle the negotiations, said that Aboriginal people might even be pushed into violence. Traditional owners at Gunbalanya (once known as Oenpelli) rejected the proposed agreement. Yunupingu was warned that many tribal leaders were unhappy with his leadership of the council. He said that white lawyers acting for dissident Aboriginal communities were mainly responsible for the conflicts tearing the Northern Lands Council apart.

“No Aboriginal in the nation had negotiated a mining royalty agreement before. Someone had to set an example of how to talk and fight and I did it. Somebody had to do it and I wore the criticism.” The agreement on Ranger was eventually signed but there was bad blood.

In 1979, Australia’s first uranium mine was opened at Nabarlek in Arnhem Land, with Yunupingu turning the first sod. He was proclaimed Australian of the Year. But when he lived in Darwin, other Aboriginal people called him “Uncle Tom” and “Uptown Black”. In 1980, he stepped down as chairman of the Northern Land Council, although he remained a councillor.

Once the royalties started to flow to the Aboriginal people, things did quieten down, but not totally. When the Kimberley Land Council had an issue at Noonkanbah in Western Australia, Yunupingu accused white activists of manipulating the Aboriginal people and telling them what to do. He also came under some personal criticism for his lifestyle, which smacked of a degree of affluence.

He was assistant manager of Yirrkala Business Enterprises, which contracted for heavy machinery work to the mining company Nabalco using Aboriginal workers and ran a seafood processing and marine business. “It’s the most successful Aboriginal business in Australia making profits of about $1 million a year,” he said.

In 1982, Sydney Morning Herald journalist Joseph Glascott interviewed Yunupingu and noted that he lived in a European-style three-bedroomed house with lawns watered by sprinklers and tropical flowers and coconut palms. “Surrounding his house are the galvanised iron huts and tents of brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins and their children – members of the Gumatj clan, one of the two traditional owner clans of the region.” Questioned on that, Yunupingu said: “I live in a house like a white man, but I don’t live like a white man. Much of the food is bush tucker which we catch ourselves.”

Yunupingu made an unsuccessful tilt at the House of Representatives as an independent for the Northern Territory but in 1983 he was re-elected as chairman of the Northern Land Council and he went on to lead a number of negotiations with mining and government bodies.

After a meeting with then-prime minister Bob Hawke, Yunupingu said the Aboriginal landowners would oppose the incorporation of Jabiluka into the Kakadu National Park. Not being in a national park, it could be mined for uranium, a matter in which the Aboriginal people had a stake. Yunupingu argued that left-wingers who were urging a total ban on uranium mining were placing the future of Aboriginal people in jeopardy.

He was anxious that the ALP National Council should adopt a pro-uranium policy. “Our point I make clear: the land is ours and since it is ours, decisions on whether to mine or as saying ‘yes’ to mining.”

He said: “It is not that important talking about money. It is the right of decision-making. Money is only part of it.” But the land council threatened to launch a Mabo-style claim about the McArthur River zinc, lead and silver development, citing a lack of information, disinformation and unfulfilled promises from the mining company.

Elsewhere, Yunupingu was held in the highest esteem. He was made a Member of the Order of Austria (AM) in the 1985 Australia Day Honours. He was also named in the National Trust’s list of “Living National Treasures”.

A Herald profile of Yunupingu by Janet Hawley noted he had multiple wives, including three Aboriginal and one European. He reportedly had 11 children and sent some of his sons to Sydney’s Scots College. The supposed extravagance did not pass unnoticed.

In 1993, the federal government asked the auditor-general to investigate claims of financial irregularity with the land council, including a claim that Yunupingu had used its funds as a personal bank. In 2004, Yunupingu resigned as chair of the Northern Land Council, amid some reported discontent among the Yunupingu family and other community members about the distribution of mining royalties paid to the Gumatj Association.

The following year, the Weekend Australian published a scorching article about him, saying there had been a deep rift within the family over allegations that Yunupingu was hogging all the mining royalties, saying that while relatives lived in squalor, “Yunupingu has the use of a helicopter, four houses and a fleet of cars, including a Range Rover”.

But Yunupingu was elected co-chair of the Aboriginal Development Consultative Forum in Darwin, held many positions on committees and organisations. He presented Hawke with another bark statement, the Bangara Statement, calling for national reconciliation.

In 2007, he spoke about the need for action to reduce Indigenous poverty. In reference to the Howard government’s Northern Territory National Emergency Response, known as “The Intervention”, he said it was an incomplete process about which he would reserve his judgment until he knew what was working and what was not. He said: “I had come to feel that [the bark petition’s] words had been ignored. The best thing to do would be to get it out of parliament and take it home and bury it in a bark coffin.”

In 2008, he led the presentation of another petition, this time to prime minister Kevin Rudd, asking for formal recognition of self-evident rights to be secured for his people through a process of constitutional reform. He spoke out against the inability of the government to provide adequate housing.

Further honours came his way, including a Lifetime Achievement Award and an Honorary Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, at Melbourne University. Suffering declining health, requiring a kidney transplant in 2016, Yunupingu was one of three Indigenous Australians, along with Tom Calma and Lowitja O’Donoghue, honoured by Australia Post in the 2017 Legends Commemorative Stamp “Indigenous leaders” series to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum.

In 2019, he was named as one of 20 members of the senior advisory group to help design the Indigenous Voice to parliament, set up by the federal government.

Yunupingu died in north-east Arnhem Land on Monday. Yunupingu is survived by a large family, including his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Yunupingu’s family have given permission for the use of his surname in this article, along with the photos that appear in the story.

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