A tale of three missions

An account of life at Delegate comes from Jeff Tungai; “There was a fair few lived at Delegate. Three or four families up there. No manager, never had no manager there, just a block of land.  It was a reserve back of the old hospital. ..A few houses put there for the blackfellows and you’d just get on the best you could. They might have got a bit of assistance off the police when they wanted a bit of rations, but that was only once a week, every Thursday or whichever”.

By the 1920s most of the Ngarigo people who were still on the Monaro were at the reserve at Delegate. Having lost their land and their traditional means of livelihood, life was tough, but compared to Lake Tyers and Wallaga Lake, they had relative freedom. These people were knowledgeable in the old ways (with traditional healers using multi-coloured beetles for divination). They worked as stockmen, brumby musterers and housekeepers on the big pastoral stations in the high country.

Unfortunately, they soon lost what freedom they had. The Aborigines Protection Board report for 1st July to 30th June 1922 states; “During recent years, a considerable diminution of the number of Aborigines residing on Aboriginal Stations and Reserves has been noticeable due it appears to the Aborigines desiring to be free of supervision and restrictions placed on them on reserves, where they have to comply with the rules and regulations... The only remedy to meet cases of this kind would be an amendment of the Aborigines Protection Act, giving the board power to, in their discretion, prohibit such Aborigines from leaving a Reserve”.

By the mid-1920s the last families had left Delegate and many went to Wallaga Lake where their descendants still live. There they had to live with segregation and discrimination and the almost total control of their lives by managers. The only alternative available was to become fringe dwellers on the edge of towns. The Aborigines Protection Board pressured them to leave Delegate (including taking children from families). 

Margaret Dixon explains how her father moved from Delegate to Wallaga and how the move affected him - and still affects her; “Dad used to still cry to go back home to the Monaro and I used to tell him; ‘Dad, you can’t go back’.  And I remember him crying. To see an old man sitting there crying to go back where he came from was very sad. We never had a car to take him up there. I think a lot of the old ones fretted to go back... They were run off Delegate. Otherwise they’d never have left there. I think he might have been going into his teens, or he might have been younger when they left.  Well, he said they were virtually told to go, probably by the Protection Board. ‘Protection’ Board - as though our people were animals and they were protecting them”.

The ten acres of land that had been officially reserved for Indigenous people on the Delegate River were taken back - officially revoked on 18/1/1957. The houses fell down and it is now vacant land, with no sign of its place in Australia’s history. 

Where are they now

According to Robbie Thorpe, there are about 120 Indigenous people at Lake Tyers (also called Bung Yarnda).  It has been in the news recently with Indigenous women imposing a blockade in March 2011 after the state government refused to rescind the appointment of an administrator. For the past six years, instead of being run by an elected council, Lake Tyers has been run by an administrator with wide-ranging powers and financial control appointed by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria. 

According to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Jeanette Powell; ''The community of Lake Tyers was encouraged to undertake community development courses to build their capacity for self-governance. It is encouraging that 14 people have undertaken the course, but further work will need to be done before the community is in a position to resume self-governance''. 

However according to resident Leanne Edwards; “Basically we're fighting for our rights to self-determination so that we can govern ourselves… and we can run our own affairs. We don't need white men dictating to us all the time telling us what we can and can't do”. Another resident, Janey Proctor, said there was little difference between living under an appointed administrator and the old missionary system - and Edwards agrees; “Elders have said to me that it's gone right back to missionary days and the only thing that they haven't come in with is rations".

The control extends to visitors with a reporter from the SBS television show Living Black stating that he made three calls requesting an interview with the administrator, but he returned the contact only; “To inform me that I was only to film images of public buildings and nothing else”.

Wallaga Lake, with a population of 120 Indigenous people (according to the 2006 census) is managed by the Merriman’s Local Aboriginal Land Council.  It has also been in the news recently.  Unfortunately, there are serious disputes between families living there, and in March 2011 riot police were called in response to reports of petrol bombs thrown and fires started.