“A Campaign for Territorial Control”? Mining and the Yirrkala Bark Petitions

Abstract

This review article provides a critical assessment of elements of Clare Wright's book, Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions. The book deals with the events leading to a bark petition being tabled in the House of Representatives on 28 August 1963, on behalf of the Yolngu people of the Yirrkala Mission in the Northern Territory. The events are conveyed as significant to later steps to formalise rights to land for Indigenous Australians, at a time when such rights, as well as access to minerals, were vested in the Crown. The author characterises the events as representing a “four-cornered contest” to cheat the Yolngu people of reserve land for planned mining. Further, the book posits a framework of “territorial control” and suggests an “extractive frontier”. In doing so, Wright characterises the actions of key individuals, notably Paul Hasluck, the Minister for Territories, as willing protagonists in actions antithetical to the interests of the Yolngu people. This article suggests such a framework and the author's interpretation of aspects of this history through the perceived shortcomings and moral weaknesses of individuals, as well as a lack of contextual understanding of the actions of some individuals and what they sought to achieve, detracts from a balanced understanding of events. In the process the motivations, and part of the careers, of individuals, not least Paul Hasluck, are impugned. An attempt is made in this article to redress some of the perceived deficiencies in this form of historical analysis.