Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In our First Nations acknowledgement of country, we often hear reference to emerging leaders. Last week, people came together across the Groote Eylandt archipelago and the Northern Territory to farewell a man who was actively transitioning from emerging leader to senior spokesperson and leader for his people. His family have given consent for us to refer to him as Mr T Amagula, a well-known name to many Territorians and increasingly more Australians. Mr Amagula was a youthful 52 years of age, with his influence and leadership steadily building as deputy chair of the Anindilyakwa Land Council. Prior to this, Mr Amagula had already established a reputation as an energetic, thoughtful and well-grounded man of his people.

Mr Amagula established an early reputation for leadership through his work with the Dhimurru Corporation, a trendsetting group of rangers working in North-East Arnhem Land. He then built on that experience to help establish the acclaimed Anindilyakwa Land & Sea Rangers program on Groote Eylandt. He had a passion for workplace development and developing pathways to Indigenous employment through his work with the Gumatj Gulkula Regional Training Centre in Gove and later as the workforce development officer for the Anindilyakwa Land Council. Mr Amagula was also very involved in cultural heritage issues, a key negotiator for the repatriation of ancestral remains from Washington and the Czech Republic. He carried out that work with solemn responsibility on behalf of the Anindilyakwa people, work that was greatly appreciated by families on Groote Eylandt. Mr Amagula also served on the board of the Groote Eylandt Aboriginal Trust, on the board of the Northern Territory Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority and as the deputy chair of Miwatj Health in North-East Arnhem Land. Most recently, he also joined the board of the newly established Aboriginal Sea Company Ltd and Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation.

At home, he was actively involved in the local decision-making group, establishing agreements with government across a range of issues affecting his home communities. This included establishment of a new Anindilyakwa local government authority and a new approach to school based education on Groote Eylandt. Mr Amagula was passionate about youth development and juvenile diversion programs, and he was a key contributor to successful youth programs reducing repeat offending and incarceration of Groote Eylandt's young people. The Groote Eylandt community has seen crime levels decrease from 346 offences, recorded in 2018-19, to 17 offences, recorded by local police in 2021-22. It is people and leaders like Mr Amagula who are showing a different way.

I'd also like to give special recognition to him and to his family for his outstanding work on the Voice referendum and on the engagement group that assisted to give advice to our government on the best ways forward that he could see, using from his own examples with his families and kinship groups in the Groote Archipelago. This was important work for him and an opportunity for him to work closely with First Nations leaders from across the country on crafting the question for the referendum. Many Territorians are deeply mourning his loss. I certainly am one of them, and I pass on my deepest condolences to all his friends and families. I'd just reach out and say to them: thank you so much for the love of Mr T Amagula. Thank you for all of the people who worked to try to achieve a better way of life, not only for his own family and kinship group but for Territorians, and to give that advice at the highest of levels, to try to encourage us to find a better way and to do so in a way that would keep people together and bring people together in creating a better place in Australia. I'm deeply saddened to hear of your loss, and I pay my respects to the Groote Eylandt people.