'Stories for country': Oral history and Aboriginal land claim

Abstract

In January 1985 I travelled to Darwin to appear as an expert witness for the Northern Land Council in the Upper Daly Land claim. While awaiting another expert (on potatoes!) to complete his lengthy evidence, several days were spent nervously shuffling through documents, in unsettling view of the hotel's palmy pool. More than ready to be cross-examined, I was glad to be in the dock at last. But my seat was hardly warm when counsel for the objectors asked that the Land Commissioner rule my historical submission inadmissable. This was on the grounds that the oral history material included was 'rank hearsay'. I was outraged; is this what lawyers think of oral history?