PROMINENT Aboriginal activist Ivan McPhee, a central figure in the battle to stop US mining giant Amax drilling for oil on Aboriginal land at Noonkanbah station, has died after a long struggle with his health.
McPhee and other activists, including Bob Hawke’s son Stephen, made world headlines in 1980 when they formed a blockade to try to stop Amax entering the remote cattle station in far-north Western Australia in a dispute that became synonymous with Aboriginal land rights.
It is understood he died on the weekend in the Noonkanbah community, aged in his early 50s.
As a young man in his early 20s living in the remote Kimberley, McPhee travelled almost 2000km from Noonkanbah to Perth at the height of the protests to address a meeting of unionists to get help to stop Amax.
When the state’s then premier Charles Court lost patience with the protests and intervened a short time later, hundreds of police were used to force a 7km-long convoy of drilling equipment through a picket line at Noonkanbah in a violent clash that sparked international outrage. No oil was ever found.
Veteran West Australian Labor MP Tom Stephens, whose vast Central Kimberley-Pilbara electorate covers Noonkanbah, said the young Ivan McPhee wasprofoundly affected by the dispute.
"It’s an event that has shaped many people in the local Aboriginal community as well as in the wider community, including people like (former premier) Peter Dowding and (former senator) Fred Cheney.
"Noonkanbah was an amazing point at which people had to work out what they were on about," Mr Stephens said.
"I’ve got vivid recall of Ivan McPhee’s presence as the convoy came through the creek crossing at Noonkanbah."
In recent years, McPhee had waged a relentless battle to improve conditions for his 140-strong Koorabye-Ngalapita community south of Fitzroy, near Noonkanbah.
"The basic struggle for land, for housing, for water, for education, for a health clinic — these were battles that he fought," Mr Stephens said. "There would have been no one more prolific in their representations on behalf of their community anywhere in my electorate.
"He was a robust advocate who would look you in the eye. He would call things as he saw them … but he could also crack very good jokes."