An Aboriginal political party ascribed a good chance of becoming kingmaker in the Northern Territory is set to be registered by the middle of the month.
The First Nations Political Party (FNPP) is being launched by Maurie Japarta Ryan, grandson of stockman Vincent Lingiari, who led the 1966-75 walk-off from Wave Hill station, then owned by British Lord Vestey.
Maurie, a Gurindji elder (Japarta is his skin name), is the son of an Aboriginal woman and an Irishman. He's talked about forming an Indigenous political party since he taught at a school in the remote Top End community of Kalkaringi 30 years ago.
Charles Darwin University political analyst, Professor Rolf Gerritsen, is forecasting that the FNPP could attract 20 per cent of the votes in Central Australia, where a third of the population are Aboriginal. Depending on how FNPP voters distributed their preferences, they could make the party kingmaker.
Former Territory Labor politician Ken Parish says the FNPP has the potential to take votes away from the ALP in the next Territory election in 2012.
I've interviewed Maurie for Noosa Community Radio. Hear it at http://www.4shared.com/audio/To6UcrQj/20110104-maurie-ryan-first-nat.html.
