Lousy Little Sixpence | Film screening & discussion

Lousy Little Sixpence is an influential film in highlighting the injustice of withheld wages, and the fight for the rightful payment to be made to Indigenous peoples of that generation or their families.

In 1909, the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Board planned to break up Aboriginal communities by forcibly removing children and hiring them out as servants to white 'masters'. The children were paid sixpence for their services, but many never saw their 'lousy little sixpence'. In the 1930s, Aboriginal people began to organise and to fight the Aborigines Protection Board. Through old film footage, photographs and the memories of Aboriginal elders, we are presented with an account of their lives and their struggle. Source: Australian Library Collections.

"A meticulous study of how white Australians between the wars consistently broke up Aboriginal families to manufacture a black servant class. Australia has produced few films of such quiet and ironic passion."…