Aboriginal workers lose payments
When 23 Aboriginal people stopped getting Unemployment Benefit because they had not taken enough steps to find a job, supporters argued that no jobs were open to them.
Twenty-three Aborigines … on Cabbage Tree Island, near Lismore, NSW, have been denied unemployment benefits even though there is not one job open to them on the island.
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Following the Social Services Act 1959, many Aboriginal people were eligible for government payments. Despite this, discrimination continued.
This August 1964 Tribune article outlines one such form of discrimination. It reports on 23 Aboriginal people on Cabbage Tree Island who could not get Unemployment Benefit. It also shows unions advocating on their behalf.
Cabbage Tree Island residents stop getting Unemployment Benefit
Cabbage Tree Island is on Bundjalung country in the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales. Three Aboriginal men had moved there in the late 1880s. It was set up as a reserve, and later a NSW-managed station. In the 1960s, men mainly worked seasonally at the cannery, in the local sugar cane industry or fishing.
The Tribune outlines that 23 men on this island received a notice in 1964 stating they were no longer eligible for Unemployment Benefit. This notice was based on the men having ‘not taken reasonable steps to obtain employment’.
The article suggested that the issue was ‘the farmers have decided to employ only European workers’, leaving ‘the Aborigines with no jobs and now no Social Service’.
Union advocates for workers
The article reports that the Building Workers’ Industrial Union wrote a letter on behalf of the workers to the Minister for Social Services, HS Roberton. In the letter, the union requested an investigation into reasons for withholding payments.
With combined pressure from the union, politicians, the Cabbage Tree Island manager, and the media, Minister Roberton agreed to investigate.
Department of Social Services investigations found over 20 men and women from Cabbage Tree Island who had claimed the payment. Some new claims had not been processed yet. The department had rejected many earlier claims or cancelled people’s payments because they didn’t think the residents had tried hard enough to look for work. Trying to look for work would have meant leaving their home on the island.
Shortly following these enquiries, 8 people had their claims processed and approved (DSS 1964).
This article reflects other reports from the time where Unemployment Benefit was denied to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote communities or from people who refused below award wages.
In late 1959, Aboriginal people at Cabbage Tree Island set up the Numbahging Co-operative, with support from Tranby Aboriginal College in Sydney and local authorities. One of the co-operative's directors was Clarence Combo, who had been involved with Tranby for a few years before returning to Country at Cabbage Tree Island (Dawn 1959:16).
Through Numbahging, a local store was set up and agricultural ventures were started on the island. With the support of Tranby, co-operative ventures were also tried in other Aboriginal communities, like in Yarrabah, a community on the north-east Queensland coast. Wandanian man Kevin Cook, who was an activist and leader within Tranby in the 1970s and 1980s, argued co-operatives were ‘the closest thing to the way we live as Aboriginal people – we are communal owners’ (Cook 2013:73).
The Tribune was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia from 1939 to 1991. It often reported on left-wing politics that other newspapers didn’t write about.
You can read ‘Dole taken from jobless Aborigines’ in full on Trove, the online research portal hosted by the National Library of Australia.
Permissions
Consultation was undertaken with Jali Aboriginal Land Council about the inclusion of this source.
Citation
The Tribune (12 August 1964) ‘Dole taken from jobless Aborigines’, p 5, The Tribune (Sydney).