He was active in supporting the Gurindji strike at Wave Hill, a pivotal event in the early Australian Aboriginal land-rights movement.
[1][2][3] In the late 1950s and early 1960s Manning became friends with a number of indigenous activists, including Davis Daniels and Jacob and Phillip Roberts.
He returned from attending a CPA congress in Melbourne in 1961 with a copy of the constitution of the Victorian Council on Aboriginal Rights and suggested to them they form a similar organisation.
[5][6] In 1961 the Federal Government moved to deport three Malayan pearl divers and long term residents of Darwin who had lost their employment due to a downturn in the industry.
Incensed by this treatment of individuals and seeing it as a way of challenging the White Australia policy, Manning and other activists formed an anti-deportation committee and organised a petition against their expulsion.
With the campaign gaining increasing prominence around the country and highlighting opposition to the White Australia policy, the Federal Government relented and allowed them stay in early 1962.
[7] In 1966 Vincent Lingiari led a walk-off of the Gurindji people[8] at the Wave Hill cattle station, 600 kilometres (370 miles) south of Darwin, in protest over wages and conditions which were then a fraction of their non-indigenous counterparts.
Before the strike Manning and other union activists had anticipated industrial action at Wave Hill and arranged that in the event of it the Gurindji would send them a telegram.
Working with Dexter Daniels, the official NAWU indigenous organiser, Manning arranged the transport of supplies from the union to support the strike, initially at Victoria River, using his Bedford TJ truck.
He was elected as a delegate to the Waterside Workers Federation’s All Ports Conference in Sydney, where he was instrumental in a decision to levy $1.00 per member nationally to support the Gurindji action.
On 16 August 1975 Prime Minister Gough Whitlam travelled to Daguragu and, creating a now famous image, symbolically handed soil to Lingiari, transferring leasehold title to the Gurindji people.
He visited again as part a trade union delegation in May 1975, travelling the country, learning about Fretilin programs and the situation in East Timor.
Working with CIET activist and fellow communist Denis Freney[12] in Sydney, Manning then organised a series of volunteers to operate a clandestine radio link from bush locations in the following years, changing position on a regular basis to avoid detection.
In edition Manning established what he referred to as the “public radio”, using which he would surreptitiously take journalists and others, including Labor MP Ken Fry, to bush locations make contact with and interview Fernandes.
In a period in which Indonesia kept East Timor closed to the outside world the radio link provided information on ongoing Fretilin resistance and the very serious humanitarian and human rights situation during the Indonesian invasion and occupation.
He held a number of positions, including supervisor and secretary of the Board of Crisis Line and president of Stuart Park Primary School Council.
[19] In 2010 Manning's Bedford truck, which he used to support the Wave Hill strikers in the 1960s, was listed in the Northern Territory Government Heritage Register.