Aboriginal activists write letter of protest to the UN

In 1966, Numamurdirdi man Davis Daniels wrote a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN). In the letter, Daniels drew attention to racial discrimination faced by Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. He appealed for UN intervention.

To get as much attention as possible, activist organisations sent the contents of the letter to news outlets and other organisations. This version is a pamphlet printed by the Queensland branch of the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAA).

Aboriginal rights in the Northern Territory

At the time, Davis Daniels was the secretary of the NT Council for Aboriginal Rights (NTCAR). Daniels and his brother Dexter Nubuluna Daniels had been involved in organising for Aboriginal rights for several years. They had put pressure on unions to start a case to gain equal pay for Aboriginal cattle station workers.

Davis Daniels was also aware of international affairs and the relevance to Aboriginal politics. In 1964, he had been invited to visit Kenya with Alawa man and fellow NTCAR leader Phillip Waipuldanya Roberts. They were hosted by Tom Mboya, the Minister for Justice, who was involved in the Kenyan independence movement.

This international experience in a newly decolonised African nation had a strong effect on both Roberts and Daniels.

Equal wages delay

In early 1966, the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ruled to grant equal wages to Aboriginal workers in the Northern Territory. However, its application was to be delayed for years, and a new clause provided a loophole for continued underpayment.

This resulted in frustration and anger among Aboriginal people, especially Roberts and the Daniels brothers, and their supporters, who had fought for equal pay.

The members of NTCAR looked for ways to protest this outcome. Dexter Daniels became involved in supporting what would become the Wave Hill Walk-off, where hundreds of Gurindji people left the cattle station on their land.

Letter to the UN

Another protest approach taken was sending this letter to the UN Secretary-General, U Thant.

Davis, with help from journalist Frank Hardy, included NTCAR’s demands for both equal and Aboriginal rights (Attwood 2000 pp 5–7). They connected them to the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

The letter addressed the denial of equal wages and land rights, poor living conditions and lack of education opportunities that Aboriginal people were subjected to. It included details about the Wave Hill walk-off, where ‘some of our people … asked for better wages’.

Daniels’s appeal went on to explain that ‘many of us [Aboriginal people] are robbed of part of our social service payments … in a disgraceful and illegal manner’.

He detailed how the government paid benefits, writing that they were going to ‘cattle station employers, Missions and Government Reserve authorities in a lump sum’ of which ‘we receive only a fraction’. With this money used for food, clothing and ‘inadequate’ shelter, Daniels argued authorities were ‘actually making a profit from social service payments’.

The letter ended with a request for help, as ‘we are fighting for our very existence as a people’.

Responses to the letter

The letter was covered in Australian press and news broadcasts. Coverage was sympathetic in newspapers The NT News and The Tribune, where the full text of the letter was included (Daniels 1966 p 9; NTCAR 1966 p 10).

This coverage drew government attention. The Department of Territories and the Northern Territory Administration were reluctant to comment or respond to the letter (NAA: A452, NT1966/4806).

NTCAR drew on existing supporters to promote their message nationally and internationally. For example, the FCAA printed this pamphlet version of the letter’s text, for easy distribution. The pamphlet was authorised by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker), prominent Aboriginal poet and activist based in Queensland.

The message was also promoted by other supportive organisations. The Union of Australian Women shared it with the Women’s International Democratic Federation, which was based in Berlin. Based on NTCAR’s text, the federation wrote a letter of protest to the Australian Prime Minister. This letter repeated the claims about how social service payments were paid.

The Prime Minister’s Department replied to the federation with a copy of a statement made in Parliament about Aboriginal welfare 14 months earlier (NAA: A452, NT1966/4806).

Although NTCAR’s letter was spread widely, it did not seem to draw a response directly from the UN Secretary-General as hoped. The government was reluctant to respond as well.

Continued protests

Daniels’s NTCAR appeal to the United Nations drew both national and international attention to conditions Aboriginal people in the NT faced. Across social services, employment, education, and housing, NTCAR argued that the way the government treated Aboriginal people was a violation of their human rights.

The practice of indirect payments and unequal wages in the NT remained an issue. The Daniels brothers continued their protest activities for many more years and especially focused on land rights.