The strike’s principal white supporters, the Committee for Defence of Native Rights, soon published a leaflet that gave an erroneous impression that 800 Aboriginal people had gone out on strike, even though the action on 1 May 1946 is best described as a series of rather tentative stop-work meetings.

CDNR Publishes 'Story the Press Did Not Tell'
Citation

Committee for Defence of Native Rights, Story the Press Did Not Tell, 1946, copy held Anti-Slavery Society Papers, Weston Library, Oxford University, MS G953a/4.

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Submitted by scollini on Mon, 11/12/2018 - 11:08

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Once the strike began, a fierce propaganda battle began in which the opposing sides gave highly partial accounts of it in order to win public support: on the one hand, the government and the pastoralists told stories in which they sought to minimise the impact of the strike; on the other, the sympathisers of the strike gave the impression of a highly successful industrial action by the Aboriginal people.