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Member for Hasluck,  21 August 2010 to 21 May 2022
Liberal Party of Australia

Almost 50 years after the Commonwealth Electoral Act was amended to give all Indigenous adults federal voting rights, Ken Wyatt (b.1952) became the first Indigenous Australian elected to the House of Representatives.¹ Making his First Speech wearing a booka (a kangaroo skin cloak) and red-tailed black cockatoo feathers, signifying leadership in Noongar culture,² he accepted the ‘mantle of responsibility to represent the people of Hasluck and advocate for Indigenous Australians’.³

With Noongar, Yamatji and Wongi heritage, Wyatt was born near Bunbury, WA. His mother Mona was a domestic worker and member of the Stolen Generations, and his father Don was a World War II veteran and worked on the state railways. Wyatt worked in various labouring jobs while studying, with local community groups financially supporting him. Believing that ‘a quality education is the key to success for any young Australian’,⁴ he was a school teacher for 13 years. Wyatt and his first wife Roza had two sons. In 2012, Wyatt married Anna Palermo.

Transitioning to education and health policy, Wyatt became a departmental director in the WA and NSW governments, following his cousins Cedric Wyatt ⁵ and Brian Wyatt,⁶ senior leaders in the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority and National Native Title Council, respectively. Wyatt was appointed an AM in 1996 for public service and youth mentorship. Four years later he was awarded the Centenary of Federation Medal for ‘his efforts and contribution to improving the quality of life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and mainstream society in education and health’.⁷ His nephew Ben Wyatt sat in the WA parliament and was the first Indigenous Treasurer in Australia.⁸

As a Liberal Party candidate, Wyatt won the WA seat of Hasluck in 2010. Winning three elections, he has been Hasluck’s only re-elected member. Wyatt became Australia’s first Indigenous federal minister in 2015 as Assistant Minister for Health. In 2019, 22 years after the Bringing Them Home report and two years after the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Prime Minister Scott Morrison appointed Wyatt as the first Indigenous Cabinet minister, as Minister for Indigenous Australians.⁹ Wyatt stated:

I am honoured to be Australia’s first Aboriginal Minister for Indigenous Australians and am committed to pragmatic action that draws together all levels of expertise – from local Elders to Ministers – to build a better future for our people and for Australia as a whole … As we say in the traditional Noongar of my ancestors:‘Ngyung moort ngarla moort, ngyung boodja ngarla boodja’,which translates as ‘My people our people, my country our country.'¹⁰

Wyatt was defeated at the 2022 general election.

Mary Moore
Western Australian artist Mary Moore (b.1957) was born in England, the only child of esteemed British sculptor, Henry Moore. She began her formal art training at Claremont in Surrey, England, at the age of 15 and later attended the WA Institute of Technology and the Royal College of Art, London. Her first solo exhibition in Australia was at the Red Dingo Show at Undercroft Gallery, at the University of WA in 1977. During this period the artist and her family established a foundation in England in her father’s name to encourage appreciation of the visual arts. She went on to gain an Australia Council Award (1983), enabling her to travel to Italy to study and develop her painting skills. In 2001, Moore won the Portia Geach Memorial Award for her self-portrait titled, ‘At Home’. Moore’s works are held in various private and public collections including the Art Gallery of WA, the Royal College of Art, London, and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.¹¹

Kenneth (Ken) Wyatt
by Mary Moore
2017
Oil on board
178 x 125 cm
Historic Memorials Collection, Parliament House Art Collections

References
1. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: K Wyatt, ‘Governor-General’s Speech: Address-in-Reply’, House of Representatives, Debates, 29 September 2010, pp. 211–16; B Hills, 'The barefoot kid from the bush', SBS News, 23 November 2015; ‘Defining Moments: Ken Wyatt’s election to parliament’, National Museum of Australia, 16 August 2021; J Vyver, ‘Ken Wyatt’s emotional debut in parliament’, ABC News, 30 September 2010; ‘About: The Hon Ken Wyatt AM MP’, The Hon Ken Wyatt MP website; J Rogers, ‘Ken Wyatt’s historic appointment could be truly transformational for Indigenous Australians’, The Guardian Australia, 27 May 2019; E Synot, ‘Ken Wyatt faces challenges – and opportunities – as minister for Indigenous Australians’, The Conversation, 30 May 2019; V Laurie, ‘Trail blazer’, The Weekend Australian, 27 February 2016, p. 20; N Hondros, ‘Indigenous “pathfinder” treads a fine line’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June 2020, p. 22; ‘Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia’, 46th Parliament, Parliamentary Library, Canberra, 2020. Websites accessed June 2021.
2. Vyver, op. cit.
3. Wyatt, op. cit., p. 212.
4. Ibid., p. 214.
5. ‘MP Ben Wyatt pays tribute to father, Cedric Wyatt, who died Thursday’, ABC News, 26 September 2014, accessed 13 August 2021.
6. ‘Tribute to Brian Wyatt’, NSW Aboriginal Land Council, 26 October 2015, accessed 13 August 2021.
7. ‘The Hon Ken Wyatt AM MP: About the Minister’, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, accessed 13 August 2021.
8. ‘Biographical Register of Members of the Parliament of Western Australia: Mr Benjamin (Ben) Sana Wyatt’, Parliament of Western Australia, accessed 13 August 2021.
9. This appointment added to Wyatt’s trailblazing achievements, demonstrating that he was the first Indigenous member of the Federal Executive, the first Indigenous minister to serve in a federal government, and the first Indigenous Cabinet minister. See The Hon Ken Wyatt MP website, op. cit.
10. K Wyatt, ‘Elders, consensus to guide future for Indigenous Australians’, media release, 30 May 2019, accessed 13 August 2021.
11. Information in this biography has been taken from the following: ‘Mary Moore: b. 1957’, National Portrait Gallery; E Day, ‘The Moore legacy’, The Guardian Australia, 27 July 2008; A McCulloch, S McCulloch and E McCulloch Childs eds, The New McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Australian Art, The Miegunyah Press, Fitzroy, Victoria, 2006, p. 698. Websites accessed 11 June 2021.