Bill Yan

My name is Bill Yan and I am a proud 30 year resident of Alice Springs. I love and have a passion about our part of the Northern Territory. I have two children born, raised and educated in Alice Springs, Alice is home.

I feel very privileged to be able to represent the people of the Namatjira Electorate and look forward to meeting as many of you as possible.

A little bit about the Electorate, it is about 198,000 square kilometres in size and to put that into perspective the State of Victoria is only 220,000 square kilometres.

The Electorate of Namatjira covers the south eastern corner of the Northern Territory. It is bounded by the Queensland and South Australian borders on two sides, part of Stuart Highway to its west, and expands just north of the Plenty Highway in its north. It is a diverse electorate that comprises both urban and remote areas. It includes the Alice Springs suburbs of Arumbera, Connellan, Ilparpa, Irlpme, Kilgariff, Larapinta, Mount Johns, (most of) Stuart, Undoolya, and White Gums. The Electorate also includes the communities of Amoonguna, Atitjere (Harts Range), Finke, Santa Teresa, Engawala (Alcoota) and Titjikala. Plus many pastoral properties, outstations and homelands.

Of course this means that there is plenty of time spent on the road getting around the more remote parts of the Electorate which I absolutely enjoy, there are so many beautiful parts of the Territory within the Electorate.  

The Electorate was created for the first Legislative Assembly election in 1974. Formerly known as MacDonnell after the MacDonnell Ranges, the division was renamed Namatjira at the 2011 redistribution. Albert Namatjira was a pioneer of contemporary Aboriginal Australian art, he was awarded the Queen’s Coronation Medal (1953), and was the first Aboriginal artist to win the prestigious Archibald Prize (1956). In 1957, Namatjira became the first Aboriginal person to be granted restricted Australian citizenship, which allowed him to vote.