Yiwarr McGrath, a registered nurse from Elcho Island, has been sworn into the Northern Territory parliament as the new Labor member for the Arnhem Land seat of Mulka. The 35-year-old won a by-election held after independent member Yiŋiya Guyula resigned, and says his first task is to listen to the people he represents.
Mulka covers the Yolŋu communities of Yirrkala, Galiwin’ku, Milingimbi and Ramingining, along with nearby homelands, outstations and the mining town of Nhulunbuy. Guyula, a senior Yolŋu man, held the seat for a decade after first winning it in 2016. McGrath, a former NT Young Australian of the Year, has promised a new era centred on young Yolŋu people, and describes his ability to move between the Yolŋu and balanda (non-Indigenous) worlds as a strength.
He grew up on the remote north-east Arnhem Land coast. His father died when he was five and his mother when he was 10, and he spent much of his childhood with aunties and cousins at outstations, especially Matamata. He left Elcho Island to finish high school, started a plumbing apprenticeship in Galiwin’ku at 16, and later trained as an Aboriginal Health Practitioner, a job he held for seven years. He then became the first Yolŋu registered nurse, working in Ramingining, and contributed to research on cultural safety in health care. As a nurse he saw at first hand how overcrowded housing affects people’s health. He said it took him around 15 years to escape poverty and credits education for getting him out.
McGrath arrives after several Aboriginal leaders, his predecessor among them, quit prominent roles this year, citing difficulties working with the Country Liberal Party government. He has criticised the closure of YiSSA, Darwin’s short-stay accommodation, which involves moving residents 100 kilometres from the city, saying the region is “going backwards”. He is a single father of three daughters, who he says drove his decision to run. His eldest, Destiny, said he was the only young Indigenous person who had put his hand up to represent Arnhem Land.
He had expected to enter politics in about 10 years, and hesitated because no Yolŋu candidate had come forward before him. He told the ABC he hopes to use the role to explain the causes of poverty to people inside and outside parliament, noting that many of those who hold power have never lived through it themselves.
