The Wave Hill walk-off, also known as the Gurindji strike, was a walk-off and strike by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families, starting on 23 August 1966 and lasting for seven years. It took place at Wave Hill, a cattle station in Kalkarindji (formerly known as Wave Hill), Northern Territory, Australia, and was led by Gurindji man Vincent Lingiari. Though initially interpreted merely as a strike against working and living conditions, the primary demand was for return of some of the traditional lands of the Gurindji people, which had covered approximately 3,250 square kilometres (1,250 sq mi) of the Northern Territory before European settlement. The walk-off persisted until 16 August 1975, when—after brokering an agreement with titular landowners the Vestey Group—Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was able to give the rights to a piece of land back to the Gurindji people in a highly symbolic handover ceremony. It was a key moment in the movement for Aboriginal land rights in Australia, which was one of the main events leading to the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976. This legislation was the basis on which Indigenous Australians could apply for freehold title to traditional lands in the Northern Territory. The event was later celebrated in the song "From Little Things Big Things Grow", written by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody in 1991, and Freedom Day is celebrated in August of each year at Kalkarindji to commemorate the strike. On 8 September 2020, the traditional owners were granted native title over 5,000 square kilometres (1,900 sq mi) of the Wave Hill Station land.
Gurindji and the pastoralists The Gurindji, an Aboriginal Australian people, had lived on their traditional land in the remote Victoria River area for tens of thousands of years. These lands cover approximately 3,250 square kilometres (1,250 sq mi) of what is now the Northern Territory. They first encountered Europeans around 1844-1845, when explorer Augustus Gregory crossed into their territory. From 1855 to 1856 Gregory led an expedition from the plains of the Victoria River eastward across the NT to the Queensland coast. In 1879 Alexander Forrest journeyed through this land from the coast of Western Australia to the Overland Telegraph Line. An area of about 3,000 km2 (1,200 sq mi), which included the Kalkaringi and Daguragu area, was granted to pastoralist Nathaniel Buchanan in 1883 for the Wave Hill cattle station. It was stocked with 1000 cattle in 1884, and 10 years later, there were 15,000 cattle and 8,000 bullocks, which started to degrade the environment. The land management practices adhered to by the Gurindji for millennia could not be followed. The Gurindji and other Aboriginal peoples found their waterholes and soakages fenced off or fouled by cattle, which also ate or trampled fragile desert plant life, such as bush tomato. Dingo hunters ("doggers") regularly shot the people's hunting dogs as well as kangaroos as they competed with cattle for water and grazing land. Gurindji suffered lethal reprisals for any attempt to eat the cattle – anything from a skirmish to a massacre. There was little choice to stay alive but to move onto the cattle stations, receive rations, adopt a more sedentary life and, where possible, take work as stockmen and domestic help. If they couldn't continue their traditional way of life, then at least to be on their own land – the foundation for their spiritual beliefs – was crucial. The pastoralists wanted cheap labour, and workers were exploited and abused. Legislation passed in 1913 required employers to provide Aboriginal workers food, clothes, tea and tobacco in exchange for their work. Pastoralists were able to make use of the now landless Aboriginal people, who wanted to stay on their traditional lands, as extremely cheap manual labour. On stations across the north, Aboriginal people became the backbone of the cattle industry for the next 70 years. In 1914, Wave Hill Station was bought by Vestey Brothers, then an international meat-packing company founded and run by William and Edmund Vestey. The Vesteys refused to pay their workers in wages, leading to tensions and arguments from the beginning.
Conditions on the station There had been complaints from Indigenous employees about conditions over many years. A Northern Territory government inquiry held in the 1930s said of Vesteys:
It was obvious that they had been ... quite ruthless in denying their Aboriginal labour proper access to basic human rights. However, little was done over the decades leading up to the strike. While it was illegal up until 1968 to pay Aboriginal workers more than a specified amount in goods and money, a 1945 inquiry found Vesteys was not even paying Aboriginal workers the 5 shillings a day ($0.50 as of 2023) minimum wage set up for Aboriginal workers under the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918. Non-Indigenous men were receiving £2/8/- ($A213.76 as of 2025) a week in 1945. Gurindji lived in humpies made of corrugated iron, without floors, lighting, sanitation, furniture or cooking facilities. Billy Bunter Jampijinpa, who lived on Wave Hill Station at the time said:
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