Central Land Council chief executive officer Lesley Turner welcomes the appointment of Tony McAvoy SC, Australia’s first Aboriginal senior counsel, as the Territory’s treaty commissioner.
“Mr McAvoy is an inspired choice to progress an NT treaty,” he said.
“His work as co-senior counsel with the Royal Commission into Youth Detention in the NT has given him an excellent insight into the barriers that are stacked against Aboriginal Territorians from a very young age.
“He understands the need for a fundamentally different approach to child protection as it relates to our children, who are still being imprisoned at record rates,” Mr Turner said.
“A lifetime of working in the legal and government sectors as a Wirdi man have prepared him for settling the unfinished business between our peoples and the NT Government.”
Appointed senior counsel in 2015, Mr McAvoy has developed a strong native title practice and has successfully appeared for claimants in several land claims.
He has significant experience in the areas of administrative law, human rights and discrimination law, coronial inquests, criminal law and environmental law, having acted as Commissioner of the NSW Land and Environment Court.
Mr McAvoy also co-chairs the Indigenous Legal Issues Committee of the Law Council.
“I can think of no-one better to take the treaty forward and wish him every success,” Mr Turner said.
8 December 2021