Murrandoo’s Burketown

Sitting in the hot and humid Burketown hall at his father and community leader Phillip Yanner’s funeral in late 1991, Murrandoo Yanner felt the love: the love from the packed room of mourners for the great man that his father was; and the love of his father for family, community and country. In those moments, Murrandoo knew it was time to come home and take up the reins of bringing justice to his people of north-west Queensland, and reviving their culture and authority. Murrandoo, then only 19, resigned his cadet-journalist job in Townsville, and became coordinator of the Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, set up by his dad a decade earlier. But first, Blue Bob and other senior elders told the young Gangalidda–Garawa man, “You’ve been to white man’s university, now it’s time for the bush uni.” The Garawa elders took him west over the border into the Northern Territory,...