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I feel the government has let us down. This Government has let the Larrakia people down. We don’t want smiles and we don’t want you know slaps and so forth on the back. What we want is to sit down and negotiate outcomes for all concerned.
Bill Risk, Larrakia leader[1]
Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory is built on Larrakia country. When it comes to elections in the Northern Territory, winning the hearts and minds of residents in the northern suburbs is critical. Election campaigns based on the issue of land rights, and hence race, played a significant role in keeping the Country Liberal Party (CLP) in government for 23 years. Notably, the 1983 election was fought almost exclusively on the issue of the return of Uluru to the Mutitjulu Land Trust (Gibbins 1988: 41). More recent elections have focused on Indigenous law and order and the detrimental impact of native title claims on the Northern Territory economy (Newman 1997). In its first term of government the Martin Labor (ALP) government had usefully engaged with Indigenous groups, the Larrakia Nation in particular, to address the issue of Indigenous itinerants in town through the ‘Community Harmony’ project. However, like the CLP government before it, which had strenuously opposed the Larrakia land claim to the Cox Peninsula, the Martin government was at the same time vigorously opposing the Larrakia Native Title claim over the city of Darwin, generating portrayals of Larrakia as a people who had ‘lost their culture’. Fearful of not being re-elected for a second term, the ALP went into the 2005 election with an aggressive platform to address anti-social behaviour, a policy clearly aimed at the Northern Territory’s homeless Indigenous residents. In urban centers of the Northern Territory such people are often referred to as ‘long grass people’ or simply ‘long grassers’. The similarities between the ALP campaign and previous CLP campaigns were not lost on many. In April 2006 Justice Mansfield of the Federal Court dismissed the long running Darwin native title claim. In attempting to find a continuing tradition of law and custom that would allow recognition of native title, Mansfield J stated:
A combination of circumstances has, in various ways, interrupted or disturbed the presence of the Larrakia people in the Darwin area during several decades of the 20th Century in a way that has affected their continued observance of, and enjoyment of, the traditional laws and customs of the Larrakia people that existed at sovereignty. (Mansfield J 2006: [812])
In his summary to the decision, Mansfield J notes that Larrakia claims to the Darwin area ‘were vigorously contested by the main respondents, the Northern Territory and the Darwin City Council’ (Mansfield J 2006: [7]). This chapter focuses on the struggle of Larrakia to assert their rights to their traditional estate, and how successive governments have on one hand generated negative portrayals of Larrakia in their opposition to such claims, while on the other hand they have utilised idealised constructions of Larrakia in the pursuit of political gain.
Mansfield in his determination specified that under s. 223 (1) of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cwlth) (NTA) Larrakia had to satisfy three criteria to be successful in their claim. These were: that Larrakia were united in and by their acknowledgement and observance of a body of accepted laws and customs at 1825 when sovereignty over Larrakia country was assumed by the colony of New South Wales; that such laws and customs now are ‘in essence’ the same as those practiced by Larrakia ancestors; and finally that there has been a continuation and substantial non-interruption of the acknowledgement and observance of such laws from 1825 to the present (Mansfield J 2006 [6–8]). The histories of Larrakia people are diverse, and subject to the many vagaries of the colonial process in Australia. Mansfield found that Larrakia had satisfied the first criterion of the NTA with evidence being drawn from the archaeological, linguistic, and historic record. He noted, ‘the Larrakia community of today is a vibrant, dynamic society which embraces its history and traditions’ (Mansfield J 2006: [11]). Despite this the judge found that the settlement of Darwin, an influx of Indigenous people into the claim area, and the impacts of assimilationist government policy had adversely impacted on the ability of Larrakia people to maintain a continuation of traditional laws and customs (Mansfield, 2006).
The decision demonstrates the narrow focus of the NTA in accounting for of the impacts of the colonial process on Indigenous rights and interests, and its limited ability to recognise the dynamics of change that are encompassed by the term tradition. As Glaskin notes, ‘Aboriginal tradition in the native title context tends to be reified towards a pre-colonial moment so that contemporary traditions must be demonstrably continuous from this period’ (Glaskin 2005: 297–8). This is despite an increasing body of research highlighting that reinterpretation, reinvention and in some cases revival of cultural practice are integral elements to the maintenance and assertion of tradition (Glaskin 2005; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Keesing and Tonkinson 1982; Otto and Pedersen 2005; Weiner and Glaskin 2006) David Martin, in an interview on Stateline Northern Territory noted that the necessity to prove a continuity of tradition between the present and the society in existence at the time of sovereignty clearly confronts Indigenous people with a test that is not applied to the rest of the Australian population. He cited revitalisation of the celebration of ANZAC day as an example that would not meet the test of ‘continuing tradition’ as applied by the NTA.[2]
From its earliest establishment Darwin was a segregated city. In 1911 the Commonwealth assumed responsibility for the Northern Territory from South Australia and adopted the Aborigines Act 1910. Under the provisions of this Act, Larrakia became institutionalised within Darwin, their place of residence confined to reserves, and their movement at the discretion of the Chief Protector of Aborigines. Larrakia camps at Lameroo Beach in the city centre, which predated European settlement of the area, were relocated to the Kahlin Compound around 1911. Children of mixed descent were further segregated within the camp. Mansfield J in his decision notes an early report of Beckett, a Protector of Aborigines, that the intent of establishing Kahlin compound was aimed at ‘keeping the unemployed natives out of Darwin’ (Mansfield J 2006: [247]). Early assertions by Larrakia in the media of their ‘special’ status vis-à-vis other Indigenous people resident in Darwin, particularly in relation to rations and housing provisions at Kahlin Compound were dismissed by Mansfield J as not being demonstration of a traditional right (Mansfield J 2006: [179-183], [255-256]).
With increasing expansion of Darwin, the Kahlin compound was closed and Larrakia were moved further away from the European population to the Bagot Reserve. Those who had been granted an exemption from the restrictive provisions of the Aborigines Act 1910, and the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918 (NT), and also the later provisions of the Northern Territory Welfare Ordinance 1953, by law had to cease contact with ‘full blood’ relatives. Exemption allowed the right to undertake paid employment, which was denied those subject of the various laws. Unable to reside in the town centre, or designated reserves, many of these people lived primarily in the enclaves of the Parap Camp and Police Paddock. Darwin also had a significant Chinese and Malay population who were engaged in activities such as gold mining, pearling, and market gardening. Intermarriage between these groups and Larrakia people was common. Stigmatised by their Aboriginality in the white town of Darwin, many Larrakia came to expediently identify as being of Asian descent, and to deny publicly their indigeneity. World War II saw further disruption to Larrakia identity and social institutions with the evacuation of many Larrakia to southern States.
Intermarriage also occurred with members of other proximate Indigenous groups, particularly from the Daly River and West Arnhem regions, who were also residing in Darwin, and upon Larrakia land. In addition members of the Kiuk, Beringgen, Emienthal, Wadjigyn and Mariatjben have occupied Larrakia country on the Cox Peninsula west of Darwin in a caretaker role since migrating north from the Daly River region around the turn of the twentieth century. These groups are now commonly referred to as ‘the Belyuen’ (Povinelli 1993).
The conditions of control in early Darwin have dictated the identity of contemporary generations of Larrakia and significantly and unevenly affected both the extent and transmission of traditional knowledge of the Larrakia estate. Familiarity within the Larrakia polity was also heavily impacted in these years of administration, and has lead to much disputation in relation to Larrakia identity and group membership. Despite this, many Larrakia have maintained and developed their identity as Larrakia through a complex of family and social relations, centred on continued residence in the Darwin area and in reserves, the Parap Camp and Police Paddock. Institutions such as the Sunshine Club, and the Buffaloes sporting club, which have typically been the domain of ‘Darwin Aboriginal families’, and loosely the Larrakia, have also been an important focus of Larrakia identity.