Cedric Wyatt facts for kids
Cedric Wyatt (born April 7, 1940 – died September 25, 2014) was an important Australian leader. He worked for the government and fought for the rights of Aboriginal people. Cedric was a cousin of Ken Wyatt and the father of Ben Wyatt. Both Ken and Ben became elected politicians. Cedric Wyatt held senior jobs in the government of Western Australia and the national Australian government.
He also served as the leader (shire president) of the Shire of Cue in Western Australia in the early 2000s. Wyatt even ran for a seat in the Australian House of Representatives in the 1996 Australian federal election. He was a candidate for the Liberal Party in the area called Division of Kalgoorlie.
Cedric Wyatt's Early Life
Cedric Wyatt was born in 1940. His father was white Australian, and his mother was Aboriginal Australian. Soon after he was born, he was taken from his mother. He spent his early childhood at the Moore River Native Settlement. Cedric went to school at Clontarf Aboriginal College and Aquinas College, Perth.
Cedric Wyatt's Career and Work
After serving in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Cedric Wyatt moved to Papua New Guinea in 1963. There, he worked as a teacher, a school principal, and a public servant. He returned to Australia in 1976. His son, Ben Wyatt, who later became a politician in Western Australia, was born during this time.
From 1976 to 1979, Cedric was the CEO of the Western Australian Aboriginal Legal Service. This group helps Aboriginal people with legal issues. Later, he was the Acting General Manager of the Aboriginal Development Commission. He also became the Commissioner of the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority. This was a government group that planned for Aboriginal affairs. He then became the CEO of its new version, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (now called the Department of Indigenous Affairs).
In the early 2000s, Wyatt was the President of the Shire of Cue. This meant he was the head of the local government in that area. In 2008, after retiring, Wyatt came back to work. He became a Court Officer for the Aboriginal Legal Service in Laverton. He also became the CEO of the Jigalong Community. In this role, he strongly supported the rights of the Aboriginal community. Cedric Wyatt was also a Governor of the University of Notre Dame Australia.
Cedric Wyatt's Political Journey
Cedric Wyatt was a member of the Labor Party until 1994. In the 1980s, he tried to become a candidate for a seat in the Australian Senate, but he was not chosen. After leaving the Labor Party, he said that the party took the Aboriginal vote for granted.
Wyatt then joined the Liberal Party. He was chosen to be their candidate for the Division of Kalgoorlie in the 1996 Australian federal election. He was the only Aboriginal candidate chosen by a major political party in that election. Even though the Liberal Party gained more votes across Australia, Wyatt only received about 24.3 percent of the votes in his area. The seat was won by an independent candidate, Graeme Campbell.
