Growing up as a First Nations person, our community was constantly described as being “political”. Yet despite the overlap between mob and political topics, the actual system of politics has been anything but welcoming to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Many of the mob I grew up with feel much safer protesting and agitating from the outside than entering the rat race to get elected and then withstand a historically exclusionary place like Parliament.
Mililma May, a young Danggalaba Kulumbirigin Tiwi woman based in Darwin, is trying to change that.
The 25-year-old established activist is running as an Independent candidate for the Northern Territory Parliament – taking on ex-Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles from Labor.
“I didn’t feel represented by anyone in that house”, Mililma told me over the phone. “If I don’t feel represented by them, I can’t keep complaining. I better just do something about it.”
I’ve been following Mililma for a while on social media, watching her activism through her organisation Uprising of the People, which was a “crucial part” of her development as a young woman.
“It was born out of a frustration by young people, that there weren’t people standing up enough to speak out against the injustice happening in the Northern Territory,” she said
Uprising’s first protest was in 2019 after the death in custody of Kumanjayi Walker, who was shot by white police officer Zachary Rolfe in Yuendumu. It then became active again in 2020 through the Black Lives Matter movement and continued to bring the community together by organising protests, writing submissions, and petitioning to the government.
Through one of her protests, Mililma May and her group got arrested in 2021 and were banned from approaching Parliament House for a year. The crime? Standing silently with their fists raised in the air to protest discriminatory youth justice laws. Mililma tells me,
“I don’t think there’s anything else more exclusionary than that,” Mililma said.
An awareness of politics began for Mililma when she was, “really young”.
“I remember my parents grunting around your house being like, ‘Ugh! I just can’t stand John Howard’ and me asking why that is,” she said, recalling the first spark in curiosity.
“Then obviously, Kevin Rudd did the Apology [to the Stolen Generations] in 2008. It was a really interesting time for politics but as being so young, and seeing that, politicians can do things like this that are important to us.”
Like many Aboriginal families, Mililma’s consistently attended protests, which underscores her core belief that “democracy is only as strong as our protests”.
“Hearing that we just want our land back and we just want to be on our Country. That was hand in hand with understanding that the people in power were the ones responsible for making my parents really upset,” Mililma explained.
After running a successful community activist group for five years, the move to become a political candidate was prompted by a number of failures Mililma saw in her community, which felt the lack of support from local politicians.
Alongside discriminatory youth justice laws, the bulldozing of Lee Point to make way for Defence housing and the Middle-Arm gas development are two Territory initiatives harming her family’s homelands.
“There was no member of the legislative assembly who I felt like I could call to say, ‘Help us and stop this right now.’ I looked at that legislative assembly and thought we need people who care about Country and young people to run in this next election,” Mililma told me.
“I was looking at waiting for someone else to put up their hand and it wasn’t happening. A healthy democracy needs a protest movement but it also needs staunch people within the system.”
Though the 25-year-old activist admitted it wasn’t an easy choice, she shared that going into politics feels like the best option there is to stop harmful laws being made.
Less difficult was the choice to run as an Independent candidate, due to the importance to Mililma of not being bound by party politics or donors, and including her community in policy-making.
“There are other independents who are just independent candidates, and they create their own policies and their own platforms. But my policies and platforms are informed by the community who I speak to, and collect the data from them to make sure that I’m representing them effectively,” she said.
Mililma described the experience as “hopeful and joyful” due to excitement from her Old People and community who want a politician they know will fight for them.
As our phone call came to an end, I asked Mililma May what message she hoped her candidacy send her electorate, and anyone watching her journey.
“We’re seeing people who have been previously disengaged from politics or who don’t believe in it, actually wanting to say that they’ll vote this time because I’m running,” she said.
“It’s about time that someone put them first.”
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