A Win, Eventually, for the Yolŋu

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A Book Review by Robert Glass

Clare Wright: Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions, Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2024
RRP: $45
ISBN: 9781922330864

Naku Dharuk is a very detailed account of how the Yolŋu people of the Gove Peninsula, aided and abetted in particular by the Reverend Edgar Wells, the Director of the Methodist Yirrakala Mission, successfully challenged the decision of the Commonwealth Government in 1973 to grant, to a company which would become Nabalco, access to the bauxite deposits on Gove Peninsula, located adjacent to the Mission. The first the Yolŋu became aware of the likely development was when Djapu man Daymbalipu noticed a long row of survey markers bifurcating Yirrakala’s paddock, leading him to exclaim ‘Yol nha dgal’?: (Who wants this?) (see first and second last lines of Prologue, December 1962).

Wright’s work is based primarily on the detailed records preserved by Wells of the time he and his wife, Ann, spent in Yirrkala, supplemented by extensive discussions with the many people, indigenous (especially Galarrwuy Yunupingu) and European, involved in the story. The central thesis of the book is that, reflecting the colonialist prejudices of the Canberra-based decision makers, including their ignorance of, and lack of respect for, indigenous cultures, the Yolŋu people were not consulted prior to the granting of the leases to the deposits. Wells had been concerned, very soon after his arrival at Yirrkala early in 1962, about the need to protect the interests of the Yolŋu, and instituted a range of actions, starting by simply talking to the indigenous people, which eventually led to the decision being successfully challenged first in the Federal Court, and then, following an appeal against that decision by the Commonwealth Government, by the High Court in March 2025.

Wright’s book is informed by three key ideas:

  • That, whereas the history of Australian mining, including Geoffrey Blainey’s Tyranny of Distance, has long been based on the western model of development articulated for example by Ben Dickinson, just appointed as Chief Technical Officer for the proposed mine (Naku Dharuk pp63-65), there is another side to the story, based on the destruction of traditional indigenous rights to the land;, and the total failure of the miners and the Government to recognise any Yolŋu interest in the development;
  • That the assumption that the Yolŋu had/ have no established systems for managing land or for making community decisions is invalid. Wright goes to considerable length to analyse these systems (Naku Dharuk, pp.65-66) and describe their workings in relation to the bauxite deposits on Gove Peninsula, especially when, for its own reasons, the Government was seeking to speed up the process of transferring the land to the mining companies (Naku Dharuk, pp. 101-102). 
  • That the only way ‘forward’ for the Yolŋu was to be ‘assimilated’ into western systems of living, a policy being pursued across Australia – Wright cites specific cases in Queensland and Victoria (Naku Dharuk, p.92)

Central to the Yolŋu’s success were the The Bark Petitions, prepared first in 1963 at the suggestion of Kim Beazley (Naku Dharuk p.314). Prime Minister Julia Gillard once described these petitions as ‘one of the founding documents of our nation’(Naku Dharuk p.10). I am one of the ‘vast majority of Australians who had never heard of these petitions’ as Wright notes on page 11, let alone their history. It is remarkable says Wright that, given the significance of the petitions, that no comprehensive history of these petitions exists. Naku Dharuk provides that history. 

Starting in 1952 (Naku Dharuk p.9) many individuals were involved in the negotiations about the excision of the bauxite deposits from the Aboriginal land reserves established in 1931.Wright lists thirty of them in her Epilogue (Naku Dharuk pp.568-572), but there are many more mentioned in the book.  A strength of Wright’s work is the biographical background she provides on many of these key players, both those (e.g .Edgar Wells and Kim Beazley), seeking to understand and support the Yolŋu, and those ( e.g. Paul Hasluck and John Geise), applying a classical colonial disrespectful lens to their culture and practices Wright provides considerable details of the struggles which many non- Yolŋu individuals, e.g The Reverend Cecil Gribble faced, first in coming to understand the meaning and limitations of the Government’s assimilation policy and the relationships between the government and the mission, and second, in dealing with the politics of the negotiations. At the same time, Wright documents how particular individuals (e.g both Gribble and Hasluck) regularly misled the Yolŋu and their European supporters about critical details.

Edgar Wells is, of course, critical to the story, and Wright provides numerous examples of his unique perspectives, for example on the nature of his religious  mission: he had no time for ‘Rice  Christianity’ (Naku Dharuk, p.26), and his support for the Yolŋu making their own decisions (starting with directing that their contribution to the new church at  Yirrkala ‘should be something of their own choosing’ (Naku Dharuk p. 58).He also realised from the beginning the importance of making the ignoring of the Yolŋu’s interests a political issue, writing to the then  Leader of the Opposition, Arthur Calwell, on Christmas Eve 1961 ‘to me there is something ominous in the quiet way these miners have operated’ (Naku Dharuk p. 58).Later, after Kim Beazley and Gordon Bryant organised for a larger group of politicians to visit the area he posed a series  of awkward, fundamental questions for them to address (Naku Dharuk,p.309)

His wife, Ann, is significant in the process in a different way. As a religious minister’s wife, she was ‘expected to be the very model of a good, subservient, houseproud ‘a role of she willingly played by, for example, catering for visitors(see, for example, Naku Dharuk, pp.201 and 308). But her ability to listen without judging meant that she won the respect of the Yolŋu elders involved in making the Church panels (Naku Dharuk, pp.58, and 120-121), facilitating wider understanding of what the artists were trying to convey. She also, at her own initiative typed up the final bark petitions (in both English and Yolŋu) and organised their insertion into the mailings for delivery to Canberra. (Naku Dharuk, p. 328).

This is also a beautifully written book – ‘a very good read’, to use the vernacular, despite the amount of detailed and complicated material being discussed. Throughout the book Wright inserts pithy summary reflections on the narrative which the reader has to stop and think about. The best example of this is her reflection on Ann’s placing the petitions on the plane (Naku Dharuk, p.328):

Just another day at the mission.
With a ticking time bomb in a mailbag on a plane to Darwin.

This is a remarkable book, providing comprehensive background to both Yolŋu culture, its decision-making processes, and its interaction with other cultures, for example, the Macassans, before the arrival of the European colonisers. Its portrayal of colonial prejudice will resonate with many Tinteán readers. In my view it will be a contender for Australian Book of the Year. 

Robert Glass
Bob is an economist and a reader and writer of history.