NORTHERN TERRITORY: INDIGENOUS PARTICIPATION


PARTICIPATION AND THE EMPOWERING OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE


The level of participation of Aboriginal peoples is one of the achievements to note as the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly celebrates its first 40 years of existence


Mr Michael Tatham is the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, previously the Deputy Clerk, Statehood Committee Secretary, advisor to the NSW and Australian Governments and a solicitor. He has a specific interest in constitutional development and reform for sub-national jurisdictions in federations.


Celebrating its first 40 years in late 2014, Members of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly reflected on the achievements and hallmarks of that period at a special open day at Parliament House in Darwin on Saturday 22 November 2014. One of those


achievements is the level of participation by Aboriginal people as members of the Assembly and candidates at Northern Territory general elections.


On 34 occasions in the Northern Territory, over 12 Assemblies, a person of Aboriginal heritage has been elected as a member of each Legislative Assembly, notwithstanding some consideration of quotas during the 1980s and 1990s which were not implemented.


34 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue One Mr Michael Tatham


The Northern Territory in Perspective


The Northern Territory is a jurisdiction of approximately 230,000 residents served by a Legislative Assembly of 25 members with a further two Representatives and two Senators totalling just four MPs in a Federal Parliament of 276. At the national level, until 2014 there had been just three Senators (one each from


Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory) and one Representative of Australian Aboriginal heritage elected in 114 years of the existence of the Australian federation. As of 2014, a Senator for Tasmania has also acknowledged her Aboriginal heritage . The Northern Territory, which has just two senators, as opposed to 12 from each Australian State, has sent 20% of all Aboriginal people ever to be a parliamentarian in Canberra, the national capital. Remarkably, for 74 of those years, the Northern Territory had no Senate representation and has only had two members of the House of Representatives since 2001.


The Northern Territory, in its existing (12th) Assembly comprises six members with Aboriginal heritage of a total of


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