On the Money: The Compelling Story of David Unaipon

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In 2015, I began to research the life and times of David Unaipon, in my view one of the greatest contributors to Australian society in relation to bridging the gap. Institutions across Australia have been scoured to enable the construction of the story which is now in first draft, as a historical fiction novel.

After watching Stan Grant's The Australian Dream I have observed remarkable overlaps in the lives of Adam Goodes and David Unaipon. Both of them extreme risk-takers, heroically bearing the brunt of racism and in publicly doing so each has played a unique role in changing ingrained perceptions of Australian society.

Between 1922 and 1925, David extensively toured the east coast of Australia, lecturing and also promoting his latest Prime Mover technology. At the same time, somehow, he managed to assemble Native Legends chapters for Angus and Robertson, later to be published by William Ramsay Smith of Adelaide under the title Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginal. Unbeknown to David, the acclaim of becoming the first published Aboriginal author was stolen from him.

Like Nikola Tesla, he was noted for his innovative genius internationally, and in 1922 he was interviewed by the spiritualist Horace Leaf, a colleague of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. David experienced unexpected obstacles in the process of promoting his gifts to humanity in the prime of his career, an ironic result of his passionate sharing of his visions and defiance of the accepted laws of Newtonian physics.

His design and patent of the novel reciprocating lateral motion shear (1909), transformed the agricultural and farm machinery industry and in return, he was given nothing, as an Aboriginal non-legal entity, his patent and genius were up for grabs. He went on to design the helicopter wing and made advances with laser technology, but his passion and area of expertise were perpetual motion and free energy. He explained to Horace Leaf that his design would reduce the injuries to sheep and in other interviews he explains he abandoned his enthusiasm for the vertical take-off device, realising it would become a machine of war.

In 2006 academics Stephen Muecke and Adam Shoemaker righted some of the injustices imposed on Unaipon via the machinations of William Ramsay Smith in a republication of Legendary Tales of the Australian Aboriginal with some tracing of the means by which the work was misappropriated.

Undaunted, he continued his mechanical design work and writing. He contributed to the reform agenda via the Bleakley Report (1929) advocating realistic pathways to reconciliation, while ironically having to travel with an Exemption Pass which in effect legally renounced his Aboriginality in exchange for basic freedoms.

We can say that George Taplin, the key founder of the Friends of the Aborigines Association, alongside George Fife Angas and CB Young, were positive influences and benefactors in his life and from 1859 to 1915, assisting the Ngarrindjeri tribe who were under dire threat of smallpox and the encroachment of pastoralism.

It's also apparent that his father James, the first ordained Aboriginal preacher had an enduring impact on young David's life, advising him after bible studies on the banks of the Murray River to remember a few simple things. "Avoid greed and avarice and remain on good terms with all men". Sanguine advice which history shows was diligently adhered to by David through the vicissitudes of his life.

By 1925, the transfer of the Point Mcleay Mission (Raukkan) into the hands of the government saw a change in the fortunes of the community. In fact, in 1926, returning to Raukkan to see his family, he was abruptly arrested and imprisoned on the charge of vagrancy, despite his self-defence in producing both a five-pound note and his purpose for travel. In the same year a young compassionate nurse, Miss Flower, from Queensland, tragically committed suicide after a painful year assisting the community who had loved and embraced her. Her family requested her burial at the community, where she ended her life after exposing the mismanagement of the Point Mcleay Mission and was threatened with a legal suit.

Hundreds of articles have been penned in relation to David Unaipon's life but none have probed it so deeply as On the Money. One of the more intriguing articles titled The "smart black" is nobody's hero, (Margaret Simons, Canberra Times 1994) explores the challenges of a blackfella navigating the white man's world and the personal costs associated with this. Reverend Fred Wandmaker of Melbourne approached every film body in Australia with the suggestion of making a documentary, to no avail. "Unaipon was a coconut." Wandmaker said, "You know what that means? White on the inside. Today's activists don't see him as someone to celebrate".

Two failed SA history grants later I am hoping that Wandmaker can be proven wrong, and the full saga can be published and made into a feature film or mini-series, a late legacy that Unaipon and the Ngarrindjeri Nation deserve.

It's a truly inspiring story, and David's fast wit and humour just manage to eclipse the darker moments in the story. The honour of appearing on Australia's new polymer fifty dollar note occurs during the heinous Hindmarsh Island Bridge scandal, begging the question of whether it was in some sense a political gesture of damage control. A few years later the Howard Government passed the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Act, an extraordinary and controversial intervention to enable the completion of a shoddy real estate development in defiance of genuine cultural concerns.

We discover in the story that William Ramsay Smith had raided and desecrated graves on the island while on holiday and had the gall to charge the expenses of his disgrace back to the government. It is a frank exposure of a sordid history with no stone left unturned.

As the Aboriginal Voice in parliament approaches, it would also be time for David's voice to be heard as well, as he is as yet an under-sung hero of Australian technology and activism. In a similar vein to Adam Goodes' effort to awaken Australians to outdated and embedded attitudes, a proper telling of David's story is well overdue.

I am most appreciative of the support of the librarians and institutions that have assisted to date, including AIATSIS, the State Library of South Australia, the Leigh Creek Community Library, and the SA Records Office.

As the project nears completion I invite readers to share or republish this article and become active participants in the story's completion.

Finally, I am thankful for the encouragement and assistance provided by Aunty Betty Sumner (descendent of David Unaipon) of the Raukkan Community and have pledged assistance to the small Coorong community in any way that can be made available via the project and commercial developments that may arise from it. Historian and linguist John McGovern is also thanked for urging me to persevere through the years of painstaking research.

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