Thomas Mayo (Indigenous Australian)

Mayo was born Thomas Mayor[1] in approximately 1978 in Darwin, Northern Territory, and brought up in a single-parent family by his father. He completed Year 12 at school.[2]

He is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man.[3] His grandfather was a Jewish refugee from Poland.[4]

Mayo started working as a "wharfie" aged 17 in Darwin.[5] While working at the docks, he learnt of the struggle for Indigenous land rights in Australia, the part played by wharfie Fred Maynard in leading the first Aboriginal political organisation in 1924, how the Gurindji strikers had been helped by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), and Aboriginal deaths in custody.[2]

Aged 20, Mayo became a union delegate in the MUA during a dispute at the wharves in 1998, when the owners were trying to casualise the workforce and make older workers redundant.[2]

In May 2017, Mayo was one of the elected members of the convention at Uluru, the culmination of 13 regional dialogues, which produced the Uluru Statement from the Heart. This was a call to reform the Australian Constitution to recognise the First Nations people of Australia – that is, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people[5] – and to create a means by which they might be better heard by the government of the day, in matters which affect their communities and better Close the Gap, as per government policy since 2007.[6] Mayo was a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which was printed onto a large canvas and afterwards decorated by Anangu law women. He then travelled the country for 18 months in his car with the rolled-up canvas in a tube, showing it to people and explaining what the Voice was about.[2] His journey is documented in his book Finding the Heart of the Nation.[7][8]

In 2022, Mayo delivered the Vincent Lingiari Memorial Lecture. He drew parallels between the struggle by land rights campaigner Vincent Lingiari's struggle to be heard by governments, to what Indigenous peoples of Australia are experiencing today.[9]

In July 2023, a cartoon ad promoting the No campaign in the lead-up to the referendum on the Voice was published by Advance Australia in the Australian Financial Review, featuring caricatures of Mayo, along with, MP and Yes advocate Kate Chaney, and her father businessman Michael Chaney. This led to bipartisan condemnation of the ad as "racist".[10] The AFR later apologised for the ad.[11][12]

As of 2023, Mayo is chairperson of the Northern Territory Indigenous Labor Network, and an executive member of the Northern Territory Trades and Labour Council. He is also an adviser to the Diversity Council Australia[lower-alpha 1] and the From the Heart campaign.[3] He is Assistant National Secretary[14] and National Indigenous Officer of the Maritime Union of Australia.[3]

Mayo is the author of many books (six as of April 2023)[2] as well as having had many articles and essays published in The Guardian, Griffith Review and The Sydney Morning Herald.[3]

In 2019, his essay "A dream that cannot be denied: On the road to Freedom Day", later published in the Griffith Review,[15] was highly commended by the Horne Prize judges. It examines the legacy of the Wave Hill Walk-Off (Gurindji Strike), and the need for a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.[16]

His books include:

• Mayor, T. (2019). Finding the Heart of the Nation: The Journey of the Uluru Statement Towards Voice, Treaty and Truth. Hardie Grant Travel. ISBN 978-1-74117-672-8.[16]
• With Kerry O'Brien; cartoons by Cathy Wilcox. The Voice to Parliament Handbook: All the Detail You Need. Hardie Grant Explore. 2023. ISBN 978-1-76144-036-6.[1]

Mayo changed his surname from Mayor to Mayo in November 2022, reflecting the original spelling of his family name as seen on the tombstones of his ancestors.[17]

• Official website