'I am young, I am gay, I am black,' says Chansey Paech to NT parliament

The first openly gay Indigenous man elected to parliament in Australia delivered his maiden speech to the Northern Territory parliament this week, telling the chamber he was “eternally proud of who I am and where I come from”.

On the first sitting day on Tuesday, which opened with traditional welcomes and performances from Indigenous dancers, Chansey Paech was among many MLAs to laud the diversity of the newly elected parliament which includes 12 women and six Indigenous people.

As the new Labor government officially took over, the chamber also heard an apology from one of the two re-elected Country Liberal party members, for the mistakes of the previous scandal-plagued government.

Paech, who won the central Australian seat of Namitjira for Labor, told the parliament he entered the chamber “eternally proud of who I am and where I come from”.

“I own it and wear it with pride,” said Paech.

“I am young, I am gay, I am black; a true-blue Territorian. I am a proud face of the diversity and future of the great Australian Labor party.

“I look forward to the day when this country will recognise my rights as equal rights, when I too can marry in my country, on my country, as a recognised first Australian.”

The former Alice Springs town councillor said he wanted Territorians to be part of the changes needed, particularly for the living conditions and economic development of the NT’s remote and Indigenous communities, so that “race-based policies are a thing for the history books.”

He would never allow or tolerate hate speech, homophobia, or discrimination in the parliament, he said.

Across the aisle the opposition leader, Gary Higgins, offered a mea culpa for the past term of government. Higgins and his deputy, Lia Finocchiaro, were the only two CLP members to survive the electoral defeat of the party.

He said the CLP government did some good work but “let down Territorians in a way that was totally unacceptable”.

It was now up to him and Finocchiaro to learn the lessons of the 2016 election and to rebuild confidence in conservative politics, Higgins said, and he gave an “unreserved apology”.

“Where there should have been consultation, there was belligerence. Where there should have been communication, there was spin. Where there should have been respect, there was defiance. Where there should have been loyalty there was disunity. For that I am sorry.”

Higgins’s speech was followed by Sandra Nelson, who won the seat of Katherine for Labor for the first time ever, by 33 votes.

In 1975, a then four-year-old Nelson and her family fled East Timor’s civil war, arriving in Australia two years later. She is the first East Timorese-born Australian to be elected to parliament, having previously been a soldier and worked in the health and legal sectors.

Nelson said her father, the East Timorese political leader João Carrascalão, and her uncle, the former president José Ramos-Horta, taught her that “a leader is only as strong as the weakest member of the community”.

She said housing and antisocial behaviour needed to be addressed as a priority in Katherine.

“In an unfortunate situation, mirrored in many Northern Territory communities, Katherine has also been forged in part by a painful social inequity that transcends stereotypes and skin colour,” she said.

Yingiya Mark Guyula, who marked Labor’s only defeat by winning the seat of Nhulunbuy from the former deputy leader, Lynne Walker, said he had not wanted to become a politician, but nothing else had worked to see Yolngu law recognised.

Guyula, a Liya-dhalinymirr Djambarrpuyungu from East Arnhem Land, said he was elected to “bring two parliaments together” as a Yolngu diplomat, and he wanted to represent both Indigenous and non-Indigenous constituents.

He tabled a statement on behalf of the Yolngu Nations Assembly, declaring ongoing Yolngu sovereignty and the validity of traditional law being equal to that of the Australian parliament.

Guyula also spoke of the difficulties of living in two worlds – Yolngu and Balanda –and the importance of bilingual education for Indigenous children.

Guyula’s election is facing a potential challenge over whether he was employed by the East Arnhem council at the time of his nomination, in breach of legislation.

Selena Uibo, an Indigenous former educator elected to the remote seat of Arnhem, said housing and roads were the biggest issues in remote communities, as well as improved services and early childhood education.

Ngaree Ah Kit, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman of Chinese descent and former mental health worker, said the government needed to do more to address the NT’s suicide rate – the highest in the country.

The newly elected member for Fong Lim, Jeff Collins, said issues in the justice system had piqued his interest to run for the seat.

“The fact the Northern Territory has the highest incarceration rate in the world must be deeply embarrassing to more than just me,” he said.

He said “tough on crime” policies did not work, and called for drug problems to be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal one.

Independent Kezia Purick was reelected as speaker, with fellow Independent Gerry Wood noting it was her third tilt at the job, after losing it for 40 minutes during an attempted midnight ousting last year.