The Central Land Council has elected Anangu youth worker Robert Hoosan as CLC chair and Warlpiri youth organisation leader Warren Williams as deputy chair at its meeting at Tennant Creek today.

Mr Hoosan is a former CLC field officer, police officer, health worker and Uniting Church chair from Aputula (Finke).

He and other elders take young men out bush for weeks at a time where they teach spear and boomerang-making at cultural healing camps “to fix our spirit up”.

He is proud of the many young people communities in the southern half of the NT have chosen over the past six weeks to represent them on the land council for the next three years.

“It makes me really proud that the community had the good idea to put young people on. One of them is only 20 years old – our youngest delegate ever. That’s good, but we still need to learn from the old people,” he said.

“We’ve got good delegates and staff, both men and women, and we’ve got to work together. The land council’s future looks bright.”

Mr Hoosan has been a member of the CLC’s 11-member executive committee since 2019 and was a delegate when he was younger. He is also a board member of the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority.

“I love to listen to people and try to guide them, and I need them to guide me too. We delegates, the remote communities, are the land council.”

Mr Williams, a former assistant school principal who is the deputy president of the Central Desert Shire Council and chairs Yuendumu’s Warlpiri Youth Development Aboriginal Corporation, plans to advocate for young people.

“We get them out to Mount Theo [outstation] where they learn their culture,” he said.

“We’ve been asking for a school there for a very long time because they also need to learn to read and write.”

Mr Williams also wants to focus on the repatriation of sacred objects and the protection of sites and act as a peace maker.

“I want to help people in our communities live in harmony.”

The election was carried out by the NT Electoral Commission.

This afternoon the CLC delegates will chose the remaining nine members of the executive committee and two members of the board of the new NT Aboriginal Investment Corporation.

6 April 2022