Yolŋu nurse enters parliament, promising 'new era' for NT politics

Yiwarr McGrath describes walking in two worlds as a "superpower".

"I can swing through both worlds, Yolŋu and balanda (non-Indigenous), it's a strength," he says.

As the registered nurse from Arnhem Land's Elcho Island starts his career in the Northern Territory parliament this week, he says his first task will be to "listen".

"The future is talking to young people, elevating and liberating young Yolŋu people," he says.

"So it's a new era, we're going to be talking about new things, not reflecting on the past."

The 35-year-old won a recent by-election for Labor in the vast Arnhem Land seat of Mulka.

The electorate takes in the Yolŋu communities of Yirrkala, Galiwin'ku, Milingimbi and Ramingining, nearby homelands and outstations, and the mining town of Nhulunbuy.

Mr McGrath's win followed the resignation of independent member Yiŋiya Guyula, a senior Yolŋu man who spent a decade in parliament after claiming the safe Labor seat in 2016.

Mr McGrath's daughters have been by his side for his political journey so far, including his eldest daughter Destiny.

"He's the only young Indigenous person that put his hand up to be representing Arnhem Land," she says.

"It's pretty exciting for the future as well, for Yolŋu people, he'll be guiding them.

"I'm just very proud of him."

Back at their home on Elcho Island, Destiny's favourite thing to do with her father is "night crayfishing".

"You have to get a head torch, and then you just go through the reef area, you have to get a spear, and you'll just see them crawling, they're kind of like a spider, like a sea spider," she says.

"I was a bit nervous at first because I didn't really know how to spear crayfish, but then he told me to slow down and just aim for it and then go closer."

Mr McGrath says his experience as a single father of three daughters has fuelled his political ambitions.

"I'm really honoured to have them in my life," he says.

"Without them I would never have had any ambitions and aspirations of going further."

Growing up on the remote north-east Arnhem Land coast, after losing both his parents as a child, Mr McGrath describes poverty as a trap not many escape from.

"People think it's easy to get out, in the urban mainstream level, they say why can't Aboriginal people be like us and snap out of it?" he says.

"Poverty doesn't discriminate.

"It'll steal your childhood — it took me around 15 years to break away, because poverty is a vicious cycle, only a few of us make it out."

Mr McGrath credits his own escape to education, leaving Elcho Island to finish high school, and his first job as an apprentice plumber back home in Galiwin'ku at the age of 16.

"My father passed away when I was five, he crashed on a quad bike, and then when I was 10, my mother passed away with a connective tissue condition, equivalent to lupus — it affected her heart," he says.

"So I grew up around the aunties and the cousins, many, many places, mainly in outstations, particularly in Matamata."

When he returned from high school as a teenager and was able to speak English, he had to "become a man" and financially provide for other family members.

"A lot of my family wasn't privileged enough to read and write and get an education," he says.

"It was a very, very difficult life."

Motivated by the death of his mother and other relatives, Mr McGrath trained and worked as an Aboriginal Health Practitioner for seven years before becoming the first Yolŋu registered nurse, working at the nearby Ramingining community.

During this time, Mr McGrath says his ambitions to influence government policy grew, driven by a desire to help people in his community, and he contributed to several health research projects on cultural safety.

"I think I understood it on the ground in the clinic, doing the acute care work," he says.

"I decided to do a degree in nursing, but I was still band-aiding my people, and it felt like I was cheating my people."

He says entering politics was always his "dream and passion", but it happened a bit earlier than expected.

"Probably in the next 10 years it was meant to be, but I was afraid because no Yolŋu put their hand up," he says.

Mr McGrath's Mulka predecessor was among several Aboriginal leaders to resign from high-profile positions this year, citing difficulties working with the Country Liberal Party government.

"They've been fighting it for a long time," he says.

"I'm fresh in the game, so I'm here to fight for my people."

As a remote community resident, the current controversy about the closure of Darwin's short-stay accommodation YiSSA — and the shifting of residents 100 kilometres away from the city — feels personal.

"It's out of sight, out of mind. What are we doing? We're going backwards," he says.

"This is like the '60s, what is it next? We sit in the back of the bus? Blacks in the back?

"That's what it is."

The former NT Young Australian of the Year says he is hopeful his new role will involve educating others in, and outside, parliament about the drivers of poverty.

"These people are privileged, they've never lived in poverty," Mr McGrath says.

"So that's my role, to educate them."