One of the most famous images of Gough Whitlam shows the late Prime Minister pouring desert soil into the hand of Aboriginal man Vincent Lingiari.
Mr Lingiari, a Gurindji elder, had led a nine-year strike to win back his traditional lands on the Northern Territory's Wave Hill Station.
On the 16th August, 1975, Mr Whitlam handed over the deeds to Wave Hill and poured soil into Mr Lingiari's palm as a symbolic gesture of the land's return.
And now Mr Lingiari's grandson wants to return the gesture.
Mr Lingiari, a stockman on the Wave Hill cattle station in the Northern Territory, led about 200 of his colleagues on a strike.
The protesters wanted better wages and conditions, and were also seeking the return of some of their traditional lands to develop a cattle station.
In 1972, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced that funds would be made available for the purchase of some of the land.
The owner of the Wave Hill Cattle Station - Lord Vestey - also offered to surrender 90 square kilometres to the Gurindji people.
On 16 August 1975, Prime Minister Whitlam travelled to the lands to transfer leasehold title to the Gurindji, symbolically handing soil to Vincent Lingiari.
"I want to promise you, that this act of restitution which we perform today will not stand alone. Your fight was not for yourselves alone and we are determined that Aboriginal Australians everywhere will be helped by it. I want to promise that, through their Government, the people of Australia will help you in your plans to use this land fruitfully for the Gurindji. And I want to give back to you formally in Aboriginal and Australian Law ownership of this land of your fathers."
The Gurindji campaign led to the eventual passing of the Northern Territory's Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1976.
Mr Lingiari's grandson, Maurie Japarta Ryan, says it brought Mr Whitlam into Gurindji folklore
"He gave back land to my grandfather who was a leader of 250 men, women and children. And for us Aboriginal people, land is the most important thing of all. The land is our mother, it provides shelter, food, water, without it you're nothing. By him saying what he said and giving it to my grandfather, words cannot express, you can put thousands and thousands of words together, but it does not express that exact moment in time, it's immortal."
Maurie Japarta Ryan says he now wants to offer soil from that same land back to the family of the man he will only refer to as "Mr Whitlam".
"The reason I will not use his first name, because I, on behalf of my people, call him "Kulim" we don't mention his name for 12 months, cause he's part of us. There's not many non-Indigenous people who I will do that to. But what I wanted to do was get some soil from the same place he gave it to my grandfather and give it in return to his children. We are joined together."
Mr Ryan says that symbolic act, nearly 40 years ago, has given hope to generations of Aboriginal Australians.
"It gives us hope for the future, that somebody as powerful as Mr Whitlam, the head of the Australian government could do that."
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