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before the American landing there in February 1944, and in the May occupation of Emirau, he was later made a
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) Discharged in February 1946, Moy resumed work as Acting
Assistant District Officer in the Sepik district and in May was posted to Manus Island as Acting District Officer.
He was on leave from New Guinea when, in early November, he was appointed Director of Native Affairs in the
Northern Territory, succeeding another New Guinea hand, E W P Chinnery.
The Native Affairs Branch was under-staffed and under-funded in the post-war years, but the first four Cadet
Patrol Officers had been appointed and Moy was able to develop a small but effective patrol service on the
New Guinea model. Between 1947 and 1950, seven Patrol Officers took Elkin’s six-month course at the University
of Sydney. Moy maintained a correspondence with Elkin and helped arrange his annual field trips to the Territory.
By September 1950, Moy was able to achieve his aim of terminating the appointments of many police officers
as ‘protectors of Aboriginals’ and relying primarily on his own trained staff. He supported the move to establish
a training post at the Liverpool River by Patrol Officers Kyle-Little and Doolan in 1949 and the development of
new reserve settlements at Hooker Creek (Lajamanu), Yuendumu, Snake Bay (Milikapati) and Beswick Creek
(originally at Tandangal) and cattle training projects at Haasts Bluff and Beswick Station.
One of Moy’s first initiatives was to convene a conference with pastoralists in Alice Springs in January 1947
to negotiate agreement on improved pay and conditions for Aboriginal workers on the cattle stations. After new
regulations finally became effective in July 1949, the inspection of employment on the stations became the main
task of the Patrol Officers.
Moy insisted on the return of the people of mixed Aboriginal descent who had been evacuated from the north
during the war and had to weather some sharp criticism and press publicity on his handling of this issue. He convened
the first conference between the Administration and the missions in August 1948, under the chairmanship of
Professor Elkin, and was able to offer greatly increased government support for mission work in health, education
and welfare.
In 1947, the Northern Territory Legislative Council was established and Moy was appointed as one of the
Official members and had to deal with the criticism by elected members of the administration of Aboriginal
affairs. The Aboriginals Ordinance remained essentially unchanged since the 1930s and people of mixed descent
in Darwin, especially ex servicemen, chafed under the controls imposed on the ‘half castes’. With some tacit
encouragement from Moy’s branch, their leaders campaigned for full citizenship rights and early in 1951 organised
an Australian Half-Caste Progressive Association. When Moy in January 1953 was able to introduce amendments
to the Ordinance, which had the desired effect, this reform was greeted with general enthusiasm in the Legislative
Council and in the community.
Meanwhile Moy had to deal with an embarrassing outbreak of strikes by Aboriginal workers living in the
settlements near Darwin in the 1950 and 1951 Wet Season, encouraged by union officials who supported the
principle of equal pay for Aboriginal workers. When in January strikers marched towards town, the police were
called out and Moy himself addressed the strikers. Charges were laid against the supposed instigators of this and
another strike in February, and Moy then used his powers under the Ordinance to have Fred Waters Nadpur,
a Larrakia Aborigine and strike leader, removed to the remote Haasts Bluff Reserve. The North Australian Workers’
Union (NAWU) saw to it that this action was widely reported in the press and condemned by many southern
unions: in Melbourne activists were moved to set up the Aboriginal Rights Council. The NAWU also challenged
the action in the High Court, which dismissed the application and ruled that Moy had acted neither illegally nor
irresponsibly. The protests had their effect, however, and Waters Nadpur was returned in March after less than six
weeks away from Darwin.
Soon after Paul Hasluck was appointed Minister for Territories in May 1951 he initiated action to amend
legislation in order ‘to cease using a racial classification for Aborigines’ and to replace the Native Affairs Branch
with a Welfare Branch, which would provide services to all who needed them. Moy then spent much time working
on the drafting of a Welfare Ordinance and new employment legislation. He disagreed bitterly with Hasluck’s
insistence that the term ‘Aboriginal’ be completely removed from the draft bill, regarding this as misleading
and impractical. When the Legislative Council saw that anyone deemed to be in need of ‘special care’ could be
declared a ‘ward’ of the Director, both Official and elected members of the Legislative Council fiercely criticised
the bill when Moy introduced it in January 1953. A formula was devised to ensure that in fact only Aboriginal
people would be declared but, by the time the amended bill was presented and passed in June, Moy had already
been transferred to Canberra and an Acting Director appointed. That Hasluck continued to hold a poor opinion of
Moy was reflected in his book Shades of Darkness: Aboriginal Affairs 1925–1965 published in 1988.
Moy’s career was effectively stationary in the Department of Territories for years after this. In 1954 and 1955,
he took time out to serve as a member of the United Nations Military Observer Group in disputed Kashmir. Minor
promotions and reclassifications came his way in the 1960s but after the 1967 referendum he was made available
to the Prime Minister’s Department to help establish the Office of Aboriginal Affairs and the Council which were
to advise Prime Minister Harold Holt. He served as Assistant Director of the Office under Barrie Dexter from 1967
until 1972 and then as First Assistant Secretary in the new Department of Aboriginal Affairs from 1973 until his
retirement in 1977.
Moy was again in the national headlines when, on 28 February 1974, he and three other officers of the
department were held at gunpoint in his office by an angry young Aboriginal demonstrator for some hours.
Aboriginal activists had seized the occasion of the Queen’s presence in Canberra for the opening of Parliament
to demonstrate in support of land rights and of Charles Perkins, who had been suspended from his post in the
Department of Aboriginal Affairs because of his persistent public criticism of the government that employed him.
Perkins eventually intervened and the incident ended without further violence.