“In 1962, they took my grandfather, the Americans,” said Arrerente Elder Aunty Felicity while standing outside of Pine Gap, the largest U.S. spy base in Australia.
She handed a printed letter to the Australian Federal Police Inspector Ken Napier at the gates of Pine Gap.
The contrast was stark.
Three generations of the Hayes family, the traditional owners of Kuyunba, stood next to the land occupied for 60 years by the largest Australia-U.S. joint defense facility in Australia.
Aunty Felicity gives a letter to AFP commissioner Ken Napier during a protest outside Pine Gap, July 20, 2026. Photo by Anisha Pillariset
