A young girl, Amazine, sits beside her father, Amaziah Club, during a men's ceremony on Alyawarre Country in Ampilatwatja, 325 kilometres north-east of Mparntwe/Alice Springs.

Hazel hues are boldened by golden light streaming across the father-daughter pair.

This image, Amazine and Amaziah (2024), forms part of Tea and Sugar, a photographic series by Paul Blackmore documenting families involved in the landmark Stolen Wages class action brought against the Commonwealth in 2024.

The lawsuit sought justice for thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who worked on Northern Territory cattle stations between 1933 and 1971, often receiving little or no pay.

Instead, many were compensated with rations — tea, sugar, flour — under systems that controlled their labour, movement and lives.

This year, the case concluded with a court-approved settlement, with the Commonwealth agreeing to compensation for surviving workers and their families, formally acknowledging decades of unpaid labour.

Amazine and Amaziah are descendants of Banjo Morton, a stockman and activist who led one of the earliest protests demanding fair wages and recognition.

The Stolen Wages case was not only about money. It was about acknowledgement that labour was taken, and that the economic foundations of modern Australia were built in part on unpaid Indigenous work.

For many families, the class action reopened stories long carried quietly, passed down through memory rather than record.

Mr Blackmore, who is based in Cavanbah/Byron Bay, has spent years documenting social and political struggles in Australia and overseas.

His work consistently returns to the relationship between people and the forces — legal, economic, colonial — that shape their lives.

The power of Amazine and Amaziah lies in what it refuses to resolve.

The image offers no verdict on the court case, no closure.

The photograph has been selected as a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2025 and is currently on display at the Cairns Art Gallery until 25 January, 2026.

It is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government initiative designed to expand access to national collections.