Work

Labour as a visible thing. Aboriginal skin divers and hard-hat divers at Broome, Japanese and Koepanger crews, stockmen and station workers, prospectors with dry-blowers and camels, the fence gangs who built the rabbit-proof fence, asbestos workers at Wittenoom, and drill crews and truck drivers in high visibility. This is where Aboriginal labour is visible rather than only Aboriginal policy.

Part of Western Australia

104 moments in this segment.

  1. - Report on the forest resources of Western Australia - Eucalyptus Marginata. A plate of jarrah, Eucalyptus marginata, from a government forestry report. About 22.13 percent of the region, some 109,445 square kilometres, is protected, and unevenly across its six ecoregions.
  2. - The jarrahdale timber station, Western Australia. A timber station in the southwest forest, with tramway and stacked cut timber. Jarrah was cut for railway sleepers and wharf piles and shipped across the world.
  3. - Camel train in Nannine. Cameleers from Afghanistan, British India and what is now Pakistan carried water, stores and fencing across country no other transport could cross. Richard John Anketell built the main section of the rabbit-proof fence with 120 men, 350 camels, 210 horses and 41 donkeys.
  4. - Mid-day-halt-cattle-droving-in-the-nor-west-coyarre. Cattle and horses stopped by a water soak, edged with eucalypts. The northern cattle runs were worked by Aboriginal stockmen paid in rations rather than wages, which is the grievance that produced the 1946 Pilbara strike.
  5. - Railway Construction Workers Union meeting, Western Australia, 1912. The transcontinental railway promised at federation was completed in 1917, and the private Pilbara ore railways were built later to heavy North American specifications.
  6. - Camel team in Carnarvon. Camel team and wagons still complete with motor transport in Carnarvon, Western Australia. A load of wood awaiting delivery. Cameleers from Afghanistan, British India and what is now Pakistan carried water, stores and fencing across country no other transport could cross. Richard John Anketell built the main section of the rabbit-proof fence with 120 men, 350 camels, 210 horses and 41 donkeys.
  7. - Camel team in Carnarvon. [Camel team and wagons still complete with motor transport in Carnarvon, Western Australia. A load of wood awaiting delivery.]. Cameleers from Afghanistan, British India and what is now Pakistan carried water, stores and fencing across country no other transport could cross. Richard John Anketell built the main section of the rabbit-proof fence with 120 men, 350 camels, 210 horses and 41 donkeys.
  8. - 1920 Manjimup Timber Industry.. Footage of the Manjimup timber industry dated to 1920, in the karri country of the southwest. Manjimup was a mill centre and became a Group Settlement district after the scheme began in 1921 under Premier James Mitchell. The mill workforce and the group settlers were often the same families.
  9. - Pemberton landing. Karri and jarrah went out through Bunbury and Busselton to build railways and wharves on three continents. Timber milling built towns across the southwest and cleared the forest that the Group Settlement Scheme then tried and failed to farm.
  10. - Karri log. The Forests Department replanted the coupes the mills had cut, which is the second half of the southwest timber story. Karri and jarrah went out through Bunbury and Busselton to build railways and wharves on three continents.
  11. - Karri timber load. Sandalwood was cut for export from the colony's earliest decades, long before the gold. The Forests Department replanted the coupes the mills had cut, which is the second half of the southwest timber story.
  12. - Jarrah log. Mill towns lived and died with their coupe: when the cutting moved, the town usually went with it. Sandalwood was cut for export from the colony's earliest decades, long before the gold.
  13. - Peter Donegan in diving suit, 1936. Aboriginal people collected and traded pearl shell for at least 500 years before British colonisation. The early industry relied on blackbirded Aboriginal labour including women and children used as skin divers; regulations of 1871 to 1873 banned Aboriginal women divers, which is itself the evidence they were being used. Hard-hat diving from the 1880 s shifted the workforce to indentured Asian labour, and by 1901 Japanese divers made up 943 of 998 workers.
  14. - Timber trains in Manjimup Pemberton area. State Saw Mills G Class Locomotive No2 named 'The Hewer' hauling a timber train in the Manjimup and Pemberton areas, Western Australia.
  15. - Japanese air raid on Broome 1942. Footage relating to the Japanese air raid on Broome on 3 March 1942, in which flying boats carrying evacuees from the Netherlands East Indies were destroyed in Roebuck Bay. Broome's population at the time included the Japanese pearling workforce, most of whom had already been interned as enemy aliens. The raid ended the town's pre-war pearling economy.
  16. - The Timber Getters (1952) – Australia’s Axe-Men and the Hardwood Timber Industry. The Timber Getters, a 1952 Film Australia production on the hardwood industry and the men who felled it by axe and crosscut saw. Western Australia's jarrah and karri forests were cut on this scale from the 1870s to supply sleepers, piles and paving blocks to Britain and Asia. Falling and snigging by hand was among the most dangerous work in the state.
  17. - Deep Sea Diving Suit | US Navy Training Film | 1963. A 1963 United States Navy training film on the deep sea diving suit, showing the standard diving dress in operation. The same equipment, corselet, helmet, weighted boots and surface-supplied air, was used by Broome pearl divers from the 1880s onward. Divers had no reliable decompression tables for most of the pearling era, and paralysis and death from the bends were routine.
  18. - Excerpt from Paul Barry's 1988 BLUE DEATH report on ABC's Four Corners. An excerpt from Paul Barry's 1988 Four Corners report Blue Death on the Wittenoom blue asbestos mine. CSR, through its subsidiary Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd, mined crocidolite at Wittenoom Gorge from 1943 until closure in 1966. About 20,000 people worked or lived at Wittenoom over its life, and as of 2024 more than 2,000 had died of asbestos-related diseases.
  19. - CSIRO ScienceImage 199 Measuring Western Rock Lobster Catch. Fisherman measuring Western Rock Lobster catch, Geraldton, Western Australia., June 1987.. Photo credit: Robert Kerton.
  20. - Kelpie walking across the backs of sheep. Australian Kelpie walking across the backs of sheep, The Shearing Shed, Yallingup, Western Australia. Wool was the colony's staple before gold and remained the wheatbelt's second crop after it.
  21. - US Navy 080607-N-5329L-076 Navy Divers enter the Providence River to begin diving operations on the wreck of the former. PROVIDENCE, R.I. (June 7, 2008) Navy Divers enter the Providence River to begin diving operations on the wreck of the former Soviet submarine Juliett 484. Aboriginal people collected and traded pearl shell for at least 500 years before British colonisation. The early industry relied on blackbirded Aboriginal labour including women and children used as skin divers; regulations of 1871 to 1873 banned Aboriginal women divers, which is itself the evidence they were being used.
  22. - PT 2 OF 2 PARTS Historical Broome with Broome museum WA Western Australia. Part two of a walkthrough of Broome's museum collections on the pearling era. The museum holds diving dress, lugger fittings and the records of a workforce that was Japanese, Malay, Filipino, Koepanger and Chinese after hard-hat diving became standard in the 1880s and 1890s, with Japanese divers making up 943 of 998 workers by 1901. Pearling was the only industry exempt from the White Australia Policy.
  23. - Australian Aboriginal Stockmen. Footage of Aboriginal stockmen at work, the labour on which the northern cattle industry was built. Across the Kimberley and Pilbara, Aboriginal stockmen and their families were paid in rations rather than wages well into the twentieth century, and comprehensive legal protection for Aboriginal pastoral workers arrived only in 1968. The skills shown here were held almost entirely by Aboriginal workers.
  24. - Asbestos Report, Sunday Night Program - 23 June 2010 Part One. Part one of a 2010 Sunday Night report on asbestos, covering the disease burden carried by workers and residents. At Wittenoom, CSR through Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd mined crocidolite from 1943 to 1966, with a peak town population of 881 in 1961. In February 2026 the Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation filed a Federal Court compensation claim seeking remediation estimated at over 1.5 billion Australian dollars, which remains unresolved.
  25. - Timber Getting in Western Australia.. A record of timber getting in Western Australia, covering falling, snigging and the mill. The jarrah and karri industry drove the construction of private timber railways through the southwest and supported a string of company mill towns. The same forest country was later handed to Group Settlement families from 1921 to clear for dairying.
  26. - Returnof_the_stockmen_as_Aboriginal_men_are_lured_back_to_C. A report on Aboriginal men returning to stockwork on northern cattle stations after decades away from the industry. Aboriginal workers left the stations in large numbers after equal-wage decisions changed the economics of employing them, following the arc that began with the 1946 Pilbara strike and ended with comprehensive legal protection in 1968. The return is a recruitment story with that history behind it.
  27. - Aboriginal Stockmen return to Gina Rinehart's Mulga Downs cattle station. A long record of Aboriginal stockmen returning to Mulga Downs station in the Pilbara, the property associated with the Hancock family. Mulga Downs sits in the district where about 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers walked off stations from 1 May 1946 in a strike led by Dooley Bin Bin, Clancy McKenna and Don McLeod that ran to August 1949. Gina Rinehart, born 1954, is the current head of the family company.
  28. - Fisherman carved heritage pole at Preston Beach town entrance (E37@WTW2013). The entrance and main yard of the cell block. Craypots and the boats built to carry them are the standard working gear of this coast.
  29. - Jarrah Feature Wall - Strawbale House Build in Redmond Western Australia. We have some internal dividing walls in gyprock, but were adamant not to have more than one such wall per bedroom. Timber milling built towns across the southwest and cleared the forest that the Group Settlement Scheme then tried and failed to farm.
  30. - Ensuite Vanity Complete - Strawbale House Build in Redmond Western Australia. The beautiful double vanity Tim helped us make out of the discarded laundry cabinets that came with our secondhand kitchen. Karri and jarrah went out through Bunbury and Busselton to build railways and wharves on three continents.
  31. - Empires of Dust Ch 1. Chapter one of Empires of Dust, on the northern pastoral industry and the labour that ran it. Aboriginal stockmen, drovers and domestic workers were the workforce of the Kimberley and Pilbara stations for most of the twentieth century, on rations rather than wages. The 1946 Pilbara strike, from 1 May 1946 to August 1949, was the direct response.
  32. - Torndirrup Western Australia 6330, Australia. Humpbacks now pass this coast on migration in the same water the chasers worked. Whaling ran out of Albany until the station closed in 1978, the last to operate in Australia.
  33. - Slippery ramp. Sandalwood was one of the colony's earliest exports, cut and shipped long before gold. The station at Cheynes Beach is now Albany's Historic Whaling Station, kept as a museum of the industry it housed.
  34. - Liability warning. Timber milling built towns across the southwest and cleared the forest that the Group Settlement Scheme then failed to farm.
  35. - Final Corridor Wall Plaster Coat - Strawbale House Build in Redmond Western Australia. We opted out of sand finishing and created a suede type look with soft plastic finishing floats with rounded corners. The Forests Department replanted the coupes the mills had cut, which is the second half of the southwest timber story.
  36. - Pearl Diver Jarrod Hampton's Death I The Feed. SBS The Feed investigates the death of Jarrod Hampton, a young pearl diver who died on his second day of work off Broome in 2012. The case brought modern commercial pearl diving under scrutiny in Western Australia and led to prosecution of the operator. Pearling has been a fatal occupation on this coast since Aboriginal skin divers were forced into it in the nineteenth century.
  37. - The Yugal Cattle Company. A Film Australia production on the Yugal Cattle Company, an Aboriginal-run pastoral enterprise. Aboriginal-controlled cattle operations emerged after the walk-offs and wage decisions of the mid twentieth century gave communities a reason and a means to run their own stock. Comprehensive legal protection for Aboriginal pastoral workers came in 1968.
  38. - Changing the Lives of Indigenous People in Australia. BHP describes its Aboriginal employment programs in Australia. Mining companies are among the largest employers in the Pilbara, on Country held under native title by the people they recruit from. This is company-published material and is captioned as such.
  39. - Indigenous rangers - protecting nature, transforming lives. A film on the Aboriginal ranger programs operating across remote Australia, presented as both conservation and employment. Ranger work provides structured paid jobs in communities where formal employment is otherwise scarce. The programs are administered through Aboriginal corporations rather than through pastoral or mining employers.
  40. - Pemberton planting gang at Boorara coupe 2 Gardner SF Forests Department 1975. The Forests Department replanted the coupes that the mills and the group settlers had cleared, which is the second half of the southwest timber story.
  41. - On patrol with Australia's aboriginal rangers. Al Jazeera joins Aboriginal rangers on patrol, following the day-to-day work of fire management, survey and feral animal control. Ranger groups operate across the Kimberley, Pilbara and desert regions under the direction of traditional owners. The reporting frames the work as employment on Country rather than as a program being delivered to people.
  42. - Why are Indigenous rangers important to stopping weeds?. Aboriginal rangers explain weed control work as part of their land management program. Weed and feral animal control is a substantial share of ranger workloads across the Kimberley and Pilbara, alongside cool-burn fire management. The work combines contemporary survey method with knowledge held on Country.
  43. - kimberley muster. Footage of a Kimberley muster, the seasonal work of gathering cattle across large unfenced leases. Mustering in the Kimberley now combines helicopters and vehicles with stockwork on horseback, and Aboriginal stockmen have done this work since the industry began. The physical demands of the muster are what the season is built around.
  44. - Mary Lou Before Shearing - Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond, Western Australia. Mary Lou was looking Rastafarian and getting uncomfortable fur lumps all over her because she didn’t fully shed out her long hair this summer.
  45. - Australia: Traditional land management carried out by indigenous Rangers. A World Future Council film on traditional land management carried out by Aboriginal rangers in Australia. Cool-season burning managed by Aboriginal groups is now used across northern Australia as formal fire policy and generates carbon credits. The rangers doing the work are employed through Aboriginal corporations.
  46. - Aboriginal Ranger Program. Parks and Wildlife Service Western Australia introduces its Aboriginal Ranger Program. The program funds ranger groups working on their own Country across the state. Ranger work is one of the largest sources of paid employment on Country in remote Western Australia.
  47. - After 50 years hard hat diving returns to Broome. A record of hard-hat diving returning to Broome after fifty years, with a diver dressed in standard diving dress on the foreshore. Hard-hat diving became standard in the Broome fleet in the 1880s and 1890s and displaced skin diving, shifting the workforce to indentured Asian divers. The equipment shown here is what killed and crippled those men through decompression sickness.
  48. - The Pearl. A documentary on pearling, the industry that made Broome. Aboriginal people collected and traded pearl shell on this coast for at least 500 years before British colonisation, and the colonial industry relied on blackbirding of Aboriginal people, including women and children used as skin divers. Regulations of 1871 to 1873 banned Aboriginal women divers, which is itself the documentary evidence they were being used.
  49. - Abandoned Timber Mill - Part 1/3 - Western Australia. Part one of a survey of an abandoned timber mill in Western Australia. Company mill towns in the jarrah and karri forests were built, occupied and abandoned entirely on the working life of a single mill. When the cut moved on, the town went with it, leaving boilers, tramways and house pads in the regrowth.
  50. - Midwest Aboriginal Ranger Program. A film on the Midwest Aboriginal Ranger Program, covering ranger training and field work in the Midwest region of Western Australia. Ranger programs combine paid employment, land management and the transfer of knowledge between generations. The Midwest program operates on Yamatji Country.
  51. - Boilers, AHWS, 2018 (01). Some of the boilers at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, near Albany, Western Australia. Whaling ran out of Albany until the station closed in 1978, the last to operate in Australia.
  52. - Flensing deck, AHWS, 2018 (03). Part of the flensing deck at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, near Albany, Western Australia. King George Sound was one of the earliest points of European activity on this coast: Major Edmund Lockyer established a post here in 1826.
  53. - Federation Lady, AHWS, 2018 (01). The Federation Lady, a replica "Beetle" whaleboat, on display at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, near Albany, Western Australia. On 21 January 1827Lockyer formally annexed western Australia for Britain, two years before the Derbarl Yerrigan / Swan River Colony was founded.
  54. - Coodlie Park Woolshed. Our overnight accommodation was at Coodlie Park, a working property near Venus Bay, on the western side of the Eyre Peninsula.
  55. - The Midwest Aboriginal Ranger Program - DBCA. The Midwest Aboriginal Ranger Program, filmed for a regional natural resource management group. Ranger groups in the Midwest work Country between the coast and the Murchison. The program is one strand of the state's Aboriginal Ranger Program.
  56. - Mushroom rock and recreational fisherman, Point Peron, July 2019. The western rock lobster fishery has been one of Australia's most valuable single-species fisheries. The fleet works a season set by the lobsters' moult and migration.
  57. - Wittenoom Closure. A parliamentary discussion of the closure of Wittenoom by Simon Millman MLA. The town was degazetted in June 2007, declared a contaminated site in January 2008, its last resident evicted in September 2022 and demolition began in May 2023. The contaminated area covers 46,840 hectares on Banjima Country, described by the state as the largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere.
  58. - Aboriginal Ranger Program Round 3. Round three of the Western Australian Aboriginal Ranger Program. Successive funding rounds have expanded the number of groups working on Country. The program is administered by the state's Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions.
  59. - Aboriginal Ranger Program Case Study. A case study from the Western Australian Aboriginal Ranger Program. Ranger groups carry out burning, weed and feral animal control, and cultural site monitoring. The work combines land management with the transmission of knowledge between generations.
  60. - Peron Homestead Precinct, Shearing Shed, July 2020. Peron Homestead Precinct, located in the Francois Peron National Park, Western Australia. The shearing shed. Wool was the colony's staple before gold and remained the wheatbelt's second crop after it.
  61. - Shearing shed at the old Cobra Station Homestead, July 2020. The Shearing shed at the old Cobra Station Homestead, Western Australia. The old homestead is heritage listed and dates back to 1906 but has since been replaced by the new one 9 km to the east. Station work meant months away from anywhere, and the quarters that housed Aboriginal workers were separate from those that housed white ones.
  62. - Wooramel shearing shed and quarters. Looking down the hill at the shearing shed and shearer's quarters at Wooramel Station. Shearing sheds worked through the season with travelling teams, and Aboriginal workers were part of that workforce across the pastoral zone.
  63. - Mhunga Whalla shearer training camp in WA, January 2020. A record of the Mhunga Whalla shearer training camp held in Western Australia in January 2020. The camp trained Aboriginal participants in shearing and wool handling, trades in which Aboriginal workers have long been employed in the state's sheds. Shed work is one of the few rural trades with a clear paid-entry pathway.
  64. - Afghan Cameleers In Australia Ep2 - Cameleers Footsteps in Australian outback. Part two of a documentary on the Afghan cameleers, tracing their routes through the Australian outback. Cameleers from present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and India carried supplies to the Western Australian goldfields and along the survey and fence lines before motor transport. Camels were also used on the rabbit-proof fence, where by 1910 inspectors travelled by buckboard buggy pulled by two camels.
  65. - Bring back the great Aussie shearer | Amazing Australia | ABC Australia. An ABC segment on the shortage of shearers in Australia and attempts to rebuild the trade. Shearing is piece-rate work paid per hundred, physically destructive of the back and shoulders, and dependent on itinerant teams. Western Australian sheds have run on a mix of local, eastern-states and New Zealand shearers for decades.
  66. - What does it take to be a shearers' cook? | Landline | ABC Australia. A Landline report on the work of a shearers' cook, who feeds a shearing team through the run. Shed work is organised around meals and the cook is a paid position within the team, not domestic labour. Shearing teams in Western Australia move between properties on contract through the season.
  67. - Dowerin Field Days, 2021 (63). Shearing sheds worked through the season with travelling teams, and Aboriginal workers were part of that workforce across the pastoral zone.
  68. - Old Tillellan (Piesse's) Shearing Shed, Arthur River, April 2021. 1946 strike and the decisions that followed in 1968.
  69. - Castle Bay Whaling Station cairn, February 2021. The heritage listed (Inherit # 5336) cairn commemorating the Castle Bay Whaling Station at Little Meelup Beach‎, Dunsborough, Western Australia.
  70. - Travelling on the Old Ghan Railway - Pichi Richi Afghan Express Port Augusta to Quorn return. A journey on the preserved Pichi Richi section of the old Ghan railway, the line built and served by Afghan cameleers before rail displaced them. Cameleers carried the supplies for railway and fence construction across the Australian inland from the 1860s. Their camel teams also worked the Western Australian goldfields and the rabbit-proof fence line.
  71. - Shearing on the rocket range. An extended record of a shearing run, showing the shed floor, the board and the wool room in real time. Shearers work bent over the sheep for eight-hour days across four two-hour runs, paid by the head. The wool handlers, presser and classer work to the same clock.
  72. - Dardanup Heritage Park, August 2022. Dardanup Heritage Park near Bunbury, Western Australia. Timber milling built towns across the southwest and cleared the forest that the Group Settlement Scheme then tried and failed to farm.
  73. - Panorama of King George Sound from Albany's Historic Whaling Station, April 2022. 1826.
  74. - Flensing deck at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, April 2022. 21 January 1827 Lockyer formally annexed western Australia for Britain, two years before the Derbarl Yerrigan / Swan River Colony was founded.
  75. - Machinery at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, April 2022. Machinery at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, Western Australia. Humpbacks now pass this coast on migration in the same water the chasers worked.
  76. - Memorial to George Vancouver at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, April 2022. 's earliest exports, cut and shipped long before gold.
  77. - McBride's hut, Albany's Historic Whaling Station, April 2022. McBride's hut at the Albany's Historic Whaling Station, Western Australia. Timber milling built towns across the southwest and cleared the forest that the Group Settlement Scheme then failed to farm.
  78. - Whale oil tanks at Albany's Historic Whaling Station, April 2022. 1978, the last to operate in Australia.
  79. - Old Tillellan (Piesse's) Shearing Quarters and Shearing Shed, Arthur River, April 2022. The state heritage listed Old Tillellan (Piesse's) Shearing Quarters, Arthur River, Western Australia. The also state heritage listed Old Tillellan (Piesse's) Shearing Shed can be seen on the right.
  80. - Remnants of the Frenchman Bay Whaling Station at Whalers Beach, April 2022. 's Historic Whaling Station, kept as a museum of the industry it housed.
  81. - Jardee Timber Mill, January 2022. A timber station in the southwest forest, with tramway and stacked cut timber. The former Jardee Timber Mill, Western Australia.
  82. - WAGR G class, Jardee Timber Mill, January 2022. A WAGR G class in a locomotive shed at the former Jardee Timber Mill, Western Australia. Mill towns lived and died with their coupe: when the cutting moved, the town usually went with it.
  83. - Harvest is in full swing. Just a little square left and that’s half of the first paddock. The wheatbelt was cleared within a few decades, and the salinity that followed is the bill for it.
  84. - Aboriginal Ranger Program - Round 5. Round five of the Western Australian Aboriginal Ranger Program. Ranger groups are employed by their own traditional owner organisations rather than by the department directly. That structure is what distinguishes the model from earlier work schemes.
  85. - Asbestos Shoveling Competition? The Deadly Wittenoom Story. A short account of Wittenoom, including the shovelling competitions held with raw blue asbestos as a town amusement. Crocidolite was mined at Yampire Gorge by 1941 and at Wittenoom Gorge from 1943, by CSR through Australian Blue Asbestos Ltd, until closure in 1966. The Banjima are the traditional owners of this Country and the contamination sits on it.
  86. - The history and evolution of the work choices of Chinese Australians | Belongings | ABC Australia. An ABC Australia segment on the work histories of Chinese Australians and how their occupations changed over generations. Chinese workers were part of the Western Australian goldfields, market gardens and the Broome pearling fleet, the only industry exempt from the White Australia Policy. Their labour is under-recorded in the pastoral and mining accounts of the state.
  87. - How Indigenous rangers work with the mining sector | Paint it Blak with Emma Garlett. Emma Garlett presents Paint it Blak on how Aboriginal rangers work alongside the mining sector. Heritage survey work on mine sites is carried out by traditional owner organisations. The arrangement sits inside the same consent framework that failed at Juukan Gorge in 2020.
  88. - Sheering shed at Nirimba, Western Australia, August 2023. A sheering shed at Nirimba, Western Australia, west of Thompson Road. Aboriginal stockmen ran the northern cattle industry and were paid in rations rather than wages until the 1946 strike and the decisions that followed in 1968.
  89. - 3 ft 6 in gauge 0-4-0 diesel-mechanical locomotive at a sawmill at Nannup, Western Australia, February 1966.. A timber station in the southwest forest, with tramway and stacked cut timber. Sandalwood was cut for export from the colony's earliest decades, long before the gold.
  90. - The Tale of Mr Kimberley. A State Library of Western Australia film, The Tale of Mr Kimberley, drawing on the library's collections on the Kimberley pastoral districts. Library holdings on the region document station work, droving and the Aboriginal workforce that carried it. Institutional collections of this kind are often the only surviving record of individual station workers.
  91. - Aboriginal rangers heli-burning to protect sandalwood | ABC News. ABC News films Aboriginal rangers burning from helicopters to protect sandalwood. Aerial burning covers ground that cannot be walked in the time available and follows patterns set by traditional fire practice. Sandalwood was one of the colony's major early exports.
  92. - Rio Tinto | Aboriginal Training and Liaison (ATAL) program. Rio Tinto describes its Aboriginal Training and Liaison program. The company published this material in the period following its destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters on 24 May 2020, for which its chief executive and chairman both resigned. Company accounts of their own employment programs should be read alongside that record.
  93. - Indigenous Rangers. A Country Needs People film on Aboriginal ranger work, the paid land-management employment that operates across northern Australia. Ranger groups run fire management, weed and feral animal control, and biodiversity survey on Country under the direction of traditional owners. It is one of the few employment models in remote Western Australia that pays people to work on their own Country.
  94. - At the desk: Aboriginal owned cattle station. An ABC Indigenous report from an Aboriginal-owned cattle station, with Aboriginal staff running the operation rather than working under a lessee. Aboriginal stockmen and station hands built the northern pastoral industry on unpaid or rationed labour for most of the twentieth century, and comprehensive legal protection for Aboriginal pastoral workers only arrived in 1968. Aboriginal ownership of pastoral leases reverses that arrangement.
  95. - Pioneers of the Western Australian Timber Industry by Don Briggs. Don Briggs gives a Margaret River and Districts Historical Society lecture on the pioneers of the Western Australian timber industry. The southwest hardwood industry supplied jarrah sleepers and paving blocks to overseas markets from the 1870s and built its own railways to move the logs. The talk draws on local records rather than published histories.
  96. - Two stand Ronaldson & Tippett shearing plant at Harrismith, Western Australia, January 2024. Historic farming equipment on display at Harrismith, Western Australia. The northern runs occupied Country without treaty or payment, and the labour that made them profitable was the labour of the people whose Country it was.
  97. - Church of Peter the Fisherman, Hopetoun, January 2024. The Church of Peter the Fisherman, Hopetoun, Western Australia. The fleet works a season set by the lobsters' moult and migration.
  98. - Restored gate from the Rabbit-proof fence at Harrismith, Western Australia, January 2024. Three fences totalling 3,256 km were built between 1902 and 1907, No. 1 Fence alone running 1,833 km and described on completion in 1907 as the longest unbroken fence in the world. Inspectors patrolled it by bicycle and later by camel. Rabbits were already through the line before it was finished.
  99. - WESTERN AUSTRALIA'S NEWEST PARK, PURUNGUNYA CONSERVATION ESTATE. Ngaarda Media, the Pilbara Aboriginal broadcaster, reports on the declaration of the Purungunya Conservation Estate. Conservation estates of this kind are jointly managed with traditional owners, and ranger employment is the working arm of that arrangement. Ngaarda produces from Roebourne on Ngarluma Country.
  100. - Albany's Historic Whaling Station, January 2025. The station at Cheynes Beach is now Albany's Historic Whaling Station, kept as a museum of the industry it housed. On 21 January 1827 Lockyer formally annexed western Australia for Britain, two years before the Derbarl Yerrigan / Swan River Colony was founded.
  101. - Explore The Legendary Rabbit Proof Fence!. A visit along surviving sections of the rabbit-proof fence in Western Australia. The fence was built between 1902 and 1907 in three lines totalling 3,256 km, No. 1 Fence alone running 1,833 km from the south coast to the Eighty Mile Beach. Maintenance was done by boundary riders working alone on bicycles across hundreds of kilometres.
  102. - Training is offering hope to shearers to stay in WA after live exports end | Landline | ABC News. A Landline report on shearer training offered in Western Australia as the live sheep export trade is wound down. The end of live export changes the size and location of the state's flock and therefore the amount of shearing work available. Training programs are being used to keep shearers in the state.
  103. - The Rabbit Invasion That Forced Australia to Build a 10,000 km Giant Transcontinental Fence. An account of the rabbit-proof fence, built between 1902 and 1907 as three fences totalling 3,256 km, with No. 1 Fence alone running 1,833 km. On completion in 1907 it was described as the longest unbroken fence in the world. It failed: rabbits breached the line during construction, which is why a second fence was required in 1905.
  104. - Australia Built a Fence to Stop Billions of Rabbits, It Made Things Worse. An account of the rabbit-proof fence arguing that it made the problem worse rather than better. Rabbits breached the line during construction, forcing a second fence in 1905, and a third followed by 1907. The three fences totalled 3,256 km and survive today as the State Barrier Fence.
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