Stan Tipiloura

Stanley Gabriel "Stan" Tipiloura (2 September 1957 – 20 September 1992) was an Australian politician. He was the Labor member for Arafura in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from 1987 until his death in 1992.

Tipiloura was born on Bathurst Island. He attended primary school there, before studying for two years at St John's College, Darwin and two years at Monivae College in Victoria. He worked for the CSIRO in Darwin after leaving school, and was a successful amateur footballer with St Mary's Football Club; he also played a stint for South Adelaide Football Club in South Australia in the late 1970s. He returned to Bathurst Island in 1975, where he worked in various roles, including for the Nguiu Council, of which he would subsequently be elected President. He returned to Nguiu permanently in 1980, where served as a police aide and then officer at Nguiu from 1980 to 1905. At the time of his election to parliament, he was also the president of the newly elected local branch of the Labor Party.^[1][2][3]

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Arafura at the 1987 election, succeeding his brother-in-law and former Labor leader Bob Collins, who was contesting a seat in the Australian Senate. Tipiloura's election made him, at the time, one of the parliament's only Aboriginal members. Upon his election, he was appointed shadow minister for local government, administrative services, libraries, conservation, museums, and police, fire and emergency services. He contracted kidney failure shortly after his election, and spent some time on dialysis before his uncle donated a kidney in 1990. He was re-elected at the 1990 election from his hospital bed, and was made shadow minister for Aboriginal affairs after the election. However, the disease did not rescind and he died in Melbourne in 1992, aged 35. Tipiloura was the first serving member of the Northern Territory Parliament to die.^[1][3]

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