Distilling her observations of Aboriginal communities living in Barwon and on the Brewarrina Mission in 1954, Fink concludes that Australian society in north-western NSW at that time operated as a 'caste' system. Fink's thesis is that State policies of land dispossession and assimilation dually reinforced racialised tension between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities to create a 'caste barrier,' and divided Aboriginal communities. For Fink this was apparent between Aboriginal communities living on missions and in towns.