Eric Deeral

Who was Eric Deeral?

Eric Deeral was an Australian politician who was the second Australian Aboriginal elected to an Australian parliament and the first to a state parliament.

A member of the Gamay clan of the Guugu Yimithirr people, Deeral was born at Hope Vale Lutheran Mission in Cape York, Queensland and educated at Woorabinda, to which he was evacuated during World War II. Deeral left school at 13 and worked as a labourer and stockman before becoming Chairman of the Hope Vale Mission Community Council in 1957.

At a meeting of Guugu Yimithirr clans on Palm Island, Queensland in 1964, elders decided to become more politically involved and nominated Deeral to run for parliament.

Joining the Country Party, Deeral worked with the Queensland Department of Aboriginal Affairs and won pre-selection for the Queensland state seat of Cook for the 1974 Queensland state election. Normally a safe Labor seat, Deeral won Cook as part of a landslide win to the National and Liberal Party coalition. Deeral's victory was considered to be due to the proposal of Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's plan to realign Australia's Torres Strait border with Papua New Guinea. Deeral became the second Indigenous Australian to be elected to an Australian parliament, after Neville Bonner's election to the Australian Senate in 1969, and the first to a state or territory parliament.