Ah Kit to head CDU advisory group

Jack Ah Kit, the NT’s first Aboriginal government minister, will head a new group that will advise Charles Darwin University on indigenous matters. Ah Kit will chair the 10-member vice-chancellor’s indigenous advisory council, which will provide high-level advice to Professor Barney Glover. In the late 1980s Dr Ah Kit worked with elders to protect Coronation Hill in Kakadu from further exploration or mining. In 1991, as director of the Katherine-based Jawoyn Association, he was part of the negotiating team that reached Australia’s first native title settlement over mining at Mt Todd and helped to establish sustainable enterprises at Nitmiluk National Park. He held the seat of Arnhem for a decade from 1995 and, among other portfolios, was the minister assisting the chief minister on indigenous affairs.