Wattie Creek entered Australian folklore as the birthplace of the Aboriginal land-rights movement when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam visited the Gurindji people to grant them deeds to their land. The Gurindji rose to national prominence in 1966 when, led by stockman Vincent Lingiari, 200 Aboriginal employees quit slave-labour conditions at Wave Hill cattle station and walked the now National Heritage-listed Wave Hill Walk-off Route to set up a community at Wattie Creek, which they renamed Daguragu. The walk-off began a nine-year labour strike that ended with a win for Indigenous land rights.

• The Gurindji strike in 1966 led to a nine-year battle to reclaim traditional land.
• The well-known song first recorded in 1991 by Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody, From Little Things Big Things Grow, tells the story of the Gurindji’s fight for land rights.