Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I will not, as others will have in this debate, from our side of the House, lambast the government for its budget, although I probably could. I could even be critical of the previous speaker.

But I want to use these appropriation bills to talk about a single person who has had an enormous impact on the lives of many Australians, in particular Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but most importantly, Aboriginal people in my own electorate of Lingiari. I am talking about Kwementyaye 'Tracker' Tilmouth. Tracker was born in 1952, in the south of the Northern Territory as an Arrernte man. From the age of three, like so many others, he was taken away from his family and country with his brothers, William and Patrick—three years old, stolen from his family, taken from his country.

In Tracker's words, the 'lighter skinned' older siblings had been sent to Adelaide, which Tracker saw as a reason for us 'darker skinned ones'—himself, William and Patrick—to be sent north. They were sent initially to Retta Dixon home in Darwin for around six months. Tracker was a little unsure as to how long this was. Then he became a resident of Croker Island, which was run under Commonwealth authority by the Aborigines Inland Mission in 1956. Then at Minjilang, Croker, he stayed for quite some years, until his teens when he left. In 1963, he was taken to Somerville Homes, where he undertook is secondary schooling in Darwin.

In the late sixties and early seventies, he returned to Central Australia. I am giving you this background because this man was a unique individual, and someone who, when the history books are written, will be seen to have had a significant impact on the way we think around issues to do with economic development on Aboriginal land—particularly in the Northern Territory—and most particularly, the place of Aboriginal people in this country.

When he arrived back in Central Australia, I am told that when he arrived at the airport, he and his brothers were there with a welfare officer, who introduced them to his father, then apologised that his mother had died—so much sadness.

He returned back to Central Australia, and among his first jobs was sweeping a floor at a meatworks in the abattoirs. He worked as a stockman at Angas Downs station, and then went off to work at Uluru—Ayers Rock then—at the petrol station. He worked in a garage there. Later he went back to Alice and worked in the building industry—I think probably with his brother Patrick—as a painter and roofer. It was in this period that he became engaged actively in the world of Aboriginal affairs and, as he was later to do, became employed with the department of Aboriginal affairs, I think, probably as a field officer.

He was instrumental in working with others as a founding member of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, an internationally renowned healthcare organisation delivering primary health care to Aboriginal people in Central Australia, and of the Central Australian Aboriginal Legal Aid Service. He was very much a part of the foundation of these two organisations. He became employed by the department of Aboriginal affairs and he worked in places as far-flung as Docker River and Urapuntja—or Utopia—to the east of Alice Springs, which is the region where his family was from, as it happened, and where he made contact with his relations and later was recognised as a traditional owner of Alcoota, to the east of Alice Springs.

He was a man of great intelligence. This is a young Aboriginal bloke who had been stolen by the state, sent to Croker Island and back to Darwin, and then came back to Alice Springs. He was a man of innate intelligence and creativity who knew that he needed to learn more. During the late eighties, he was sent away again, on his own volition this time, to Roseworthy college in South Australia, where he got a bachelor of agricultural science. That opened up a whole vista for him around areas to do with land management, and gave him a better and deeper understanding of things he innately knew about country. When he arrived back from his degree, he was a bit of a pest around the Central Land Council, I am told.

I actually think I met Tracker in the late seventies or early eighties, when I was working in Central Australia for the Australian National University in a remote part of the north-west of South Australia, mostly, and through Alice Springs. I think it was then that I met Tracker and I suspect he was probably a field officer. In any event, he came back to Alice Springs with a fire in his belly and he went into the Central Land Council and then, because of his perseverance but also because of his intelligence and his background, he was appointed assistant director, between 1990 and 1994, and became the director, from 1994 to 1999.

He then moved on, after 2000, and moved back into Northern Australia, west of Darwin, where he pursued what was a long-term goal for him, something that had germinated while he was at Croker. He had imagined people getting fish and other seafood without hassle. That was new to him, being involved in fishing. From around 2003 onwards, Tracker was involved in the purchase of land and embarked on establishing an agricultural prawn farm. He gained the permits, built the ponds and a home, and grew his first crop—no mean feat. Remember his background. Remember his background.

But during all this period—I have given you a bit of a potted history of his employment—he was engaged in the public debate. He was engaged in holding governments to account. He was engaged in making sure that Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory became aware of issues that were of importance to them. He did many things. He was involved in developing a land management system for Aboriginal people living on their land. In 1992, a GIS was developed with him, with help from the CSIRO, for the Central Land Council departments to use in pastoral land management, fire strategies and other program areas. He was involved in negotiations with mining companies in the CLC region that set national benchmarks for such agreements. In 1994, he renegotiated the Mereenie gas agreement to include 15 per cent Aboriginal ownership. In 1995-1996, he was involved in the Granites gold mine agreement and had a previously unheard of level of Aboriginal employment and training successfully implemented for close to 20 years. He was a man very much before his time, asserting the rights of Aboriginal people to a place in this country, and a place in their own countries, around economic development and through the exploitation of resources.

He restructured and refocused the operations of royalty associations for traditional owners in Central Australia. In 1998, significantly, he gained the financial, land, human and other resources required for the development of Centrefarm in Central Australia, a means of Aboriginal employment and investment in the horticultural industry, something that is still operating today. Between 1989 and 1997, he planned and oversaw the purchase of five pastoral leases for Aboriginal traditional owners. He was an enigmatic figure but he had a real passion for getting people involved in employment.

Tracker organised constitutional forums for Aboriginal people to plan for their futures. In 1998, he was instrumental in developing the Kalkaringi statement, which came out of such a forum. It was instrumental in the successful opposition to statehood proposals for the Northern Territory that did not constitutionally enshrine Aboriginal land rights. He was absolutely imperative and really fundamental to opposition to reform proposals by the then Howard government through the Reeves review of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act and prevented those reforms going ahead by working with the countries and the Aboriginal owners of those countries in the Northern Territory to oppose the proposals.

There are many other significant things that Tracker did during his long working life. He made a difference—he made a serious difference—to the way we see and work with Aboriginal people. I am proud that he was a mate of mine. Occasionally he gave me a bit for my corner, and that was all well and good. But he did not spare me and he did not spare many others when he was of that mind.

In 1998, he had the opportunity to enter the Senate. Bob Collins had retired, and the national executive was to appoint a new person to take that position. Tracker was approached. Kim Beazley, the Labor leader, was in his corner. The then national secretary, Gary Gray, was in his corner. Laurie Brereton was advocating very strongly on his behalf. It was Tracker's if he wanted it. Sadly, and to the shame of some, his position was undermined by people inside the Labor Party who were spreading vicious rumours about him, and he decided not to do it. Then he made some very serious and very funny, I think, assertions about the Labor Party and its ability to contemplate looking after the interests of Aboriginal people. But he should have been a senator, and the world would have been a different place, let me tell you. It would have been an interesting ride with Tracker in the Senate. I do not know what he could have been, really, but it would have been a very interesting ride and I am certain, if he had been there, he would have been a minister—no question. He was that sort of person. He was self-deprecating and he used acerbic language, but he was really one out of the box.

I want to just quote a couple of his mates, one of whom was Jack Ah Kit. In an interview with the ABC this morning, I think, he said: 'Tracker would support his arguments. While he may be viewed as controversial, he always stood by what he was saying and he needs to be remembered for being a strong-willed person with a great sense of humour. Tracker was a role model, a mentor, a strong advocate and a self-confessed mongrel,' which he was. Another friend, a very close, lifelong friend said this:

He was larger than life, irreverent to the nth degree, funny as Larry, a shit stirrer and a lunatic rolled into one. He was a green eye charmer and the most faithful of friends to us even though we fought one another most of the time. God threw away the diecast after he was born and there'll never be another character like him who could simultaneously mix with the elders in remote communities; camp with them for weeks and speak their language; muster their cattle with them; then move back to his house in upper suburbia (golf course Alice Springs); a card-carrying member of the CFMEU; a Palestinian one day, an Israeli the next; one who could mix with his coalition mates; revert back to an avowed Labor supporter when it suited him, or be the epitome of an anarchist the next "the nigger on the back verandah'; he helped many whitefellas to become rich ('I'll remind a few of them that at the funeral), was forever scheming (just days before he died) to try to become the first Aboriginal billionaire.

He was the ultimate chameleon and his motto as he said to me should have been "I can be what you want me to be". He was, to steal a song – "A walking contradiction, partly truth. partly fiction."

He was a legend and we loved him (still do) and he'll never be forgotten.

To his wonderful wife, Kathy, and their beautiful children, Amanda, Shaneen and Cathryn, can I say he was a much loved person—you know that—but above all else, he loved you more than anything.

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