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Source 6.36. “Major Problems” an extract from Landmarks: A history of Australia
to the present day (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 166)
A rarity for school curriculum of this era, the Indigenous Australians are referred to by their
tribal affiliation, the “Gurindji tribe of Wave Hill” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 166). A
discourse of land rights operates throughout this extract, with the explanation of the decision
of the Gurindji people to go on strike, or as the textbook states “…refused to work on the
cattle station” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 166) due to the point “they wanted eight square
miles of Wave Hill country as their own” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 166). The main
stakeholders, “powerful cattle interests” (Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 166) are represented as
oppositional to the Gurindji claim and the textbook then mediates the demand through
broader issues of the time, politicizing the reason for the Gurindji land claim, concluding the
section with “the Gurindji directed attention to the problem of land ownership at a time when
many pastoralist and mining companies were extending their activities throughout the North”
(Blackmore et al., 1969, p. 166). A clear binary is established in this narrative that positions
the Gurindji and cattle property owners in ideological dispute with each other. In what is now
regarded as an important historical event, this textbook is the only example of covering the
Wave Hill Station Strike across all textbooks analysed.
6.8.3 Discourses of poverty.
Source 6.37 provides an example of discourses of poverty evident in Indigenous
representations. The image, a black and white photograph, shows a group of Indigenous
Australians (four women and two children) sitting on the dirt ground around a tea billy in
what appears to be an outback area (there is scrub in the background of the photo). They are
sitting in front of two humpies, or gunyahs. There is part of a third one in the very front
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