This man's tracks: Laurie O'Neill and post-war changes in Aboriginal Administration in Western Australia

Abstract

At the end of August 1951, the local officer for the Western Australian Department of Native Affairs, Laurence (Laurie) O'Neill, drove to the Kalgoorlie cemetery and took his own life. What drove him to do so is not known. What is known is that his brother Jim had been buried there two months earlier after a sudden illness. Certainly O'Neill had had his share of personal tragedy, both his children having died at birth in Halls Creek in the state's north in the mid 1930s. But it may have been the case, too, that he had struggled to adjust to the shifting culture of 'native administration' in Western Australia. When he joined the department in 1941 the skills and experience he brought with him from 12 years as a mounted policeman in the Kimberley made him eminently suited to a role in 'native administration', a Perth newspaper asserting that 'Native Affairs Branch is lucky to have so competent and experienced a representative'. By the end of the decade, however, O'Neill's approach in dealing with Aboriginal people was no longer viewed as appropriate for a Native Affairs officer, and his views were described as being 'diametrically opposed to those of the department'.