Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Dr Lily Yulianti from cancer in Melbourne on 10 March 2023. The news shocked many people both here in Australia and in Indonesia. Lily was an Indonesian writer, researcher, literary activist, feminist and the founder of the Makassar International Writers Festival. Both as a journalist and as a researcher, she was very interested in gender and studied the status of women in Indonesian society. She was most recently a postdoctoral fellow at the Monash Indigenous Study Centre in Melbourne.

Lily was excited about her recent documentary on the relations between Aboriginal people of Northern Australia and the Makassar people and was working with our Darwin cultural organisations. She was at the forefront of keeping alive the age-old connection with Makassar through the trading cultures artist exchange. I met Lily at the Darwin Festival last year and was immensely impressed by her intellect, her creative energy and her warmth. Australia and Indonesia have lost a shared teacher in ibu Lily Yulianti. May she rest in peace. Our thoughts and prayers are with her husband and her family.