In March 1927, five months after news of the Native Union went public, William’s nephew Norman penned a letter to his friend, Jim Bassett, an Aboriginal farmer. The previous fifteen months had been particularly bitter. Social reforms that were passed nationwide, such as the forty-four-hour working week and welfare payments for poor families, did not apply to Indigenous people. A motion to extend the vote to mixed-race Indigenous people in WA had failed the year prior. Additionally, the members of the Union had been directly affected by new legislation passed by Neville which banned Indigenous people from entering Perth, the state’s hub of activity.

Norman’s letter laments these issues, among a plethora of others, such as the forced detention of more than 300 Aboriginal people at the Moore River Native Settlement and the confiscation of Indigenous children. Perhaps most significantly, Norman notes that all of these atrocities are enabled by the Aborigines Act. He sums this up in his own immortal words: ‘I have got a headache just thinking about this Act.’

Before writing, Norman had just received his uncle, William, and they had discussed the Union’s next course of action. It was decided that they would organise a deputation to the WA Premier, and soon ‘letters were forwarded to families in various parts of the south and William Harris visited Aboriginal groups in several districts, drumming up support and requesting donations.’ William had managed to secure a meeting with the Premier back in 1906, but a deputation of this well-organised, politically adept group of Indigenous activists was an unprecedented achievement.

One year later, the Native Union achieved its goal. On 9 March, they were received by the Premier, Philip Collier. Echoing the way William’s statements and letters had been received in the past, the Premier’s immediate reaction, reported in the Daily News, was paternalistic surprise at the idea that black men were navigating the white man’s world:

It was surprising to see the manner in which the case for the blacks was handled by the members of the deputation, who were nearly all men of education, and who could quote the classics mier the next white man. The members so impressed the Premier that he told them that the manner in which they presented their case would have done credit to any deputation of white people.

The deputation had come with a clear agenda that heavily reflected the grievances laid out in Norman’s letter. They argued that Indigenous people should not be subject to different laws, that they should be allowed entry into Perth, that the Moore River Settlement be abolished, that Aboriginal children should not be taken from their parents, and that the practice of forced relocation should be stopped. All of these issues, as William pointed out to the Premier during the conversation, had their roots in the Aborigines Act.

Perhaps most daringly, the deputation took direct aim at A.O. Neville and Daisy Bates, two figures who had until then been unquestionably touted by white society as paragons of virtue for their work with Indigenous people. Of Bates, who was believed to be someone who selflessly devoted her life to assisting Aboriginal people, William stated: ‘she is doing it for publicity, so that people may call her a courageous woman for living amongst the blacks.’ Their most damning condemnation was reserved for Neville:

They made very serious complaints about the administration of the department under Mr. Neville, and claimed that the Protector was the worst enemy the natives had, and if allowed to continue in control would soon be responsible for the extermination of the race. The department which was established to protect the blacks was really killing them out.

Deputation to the Premier, 1928 / The West Australian

The deputation was not only brave enough to tell the highest power in their state that they knew exactly what they were trying to pull, but they also put forward the same understandings and arguments about genocide in Australia as those made today by contemporary scholars. Two examples of this are the conclusion of the Bringing Them Home Report of 1997, which points out that the policies enacted met the UN’s definition of genocide, and what academic Colin Tatz wrote in his discussion paper Genocide in Australia (1999), where he summarised Neville’s program: