Ernest Hoolihan

Ernest Michael Hoolihan, known across Townsville as Uncle Ernie, was a Gugu Badhun Elder, housing advocate and one of North Queensland's most respected Aboriginal community leaders. Born in 1933 in the far-north Queensland town of Ingham, he moved with his family to Townsville, where he became the first Indigenous student to win a scholarship to Townsville Grammar School.

A keen athlete, he excelled at athletics, football and table tennis, and family later recalled the school 880-yard record he set as a young man. After school he worked in the public service, including the Department of Social Services, where he saw how hard it was for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to navigate benefits and bureaucracy. He began helping people in his own time, a habit that grew into a lifetime of community work.

In 1973 he and his wife Maud founded Yumba-Meta Limited, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation created to provide long-term, affordable housing in the face of severe discrimination in North Queensland. Under their leadership Yumba-Meta grew into a major community housing and support provider. Their shared dream of culturally appropriate homes for Elders was realised in 2012 with the opening of the Ernest and Maud Hoolihan Elders Village at Innes Estate, Deeragun, a 16-home village that still carries their names.

Hoolihan also helped establish the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Service and the Townsville Aboriginal Cultural Centre. He served for decades as a Justice of the Peace and civil marriage celebrant, marrying more than 500 couples. James Cook University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2009. He received the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) and in 2021 was named National NAIDOC Male Elder of the Year for half a century of work toward equal rights and better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Ernest Hoolihan died on 25 August 2026 at Townsville University Hospital, surrounded by family. He was 93. A death notice published in the Townsville Bulletin on 5 September 2026 recorded Ernest Michael Hoolihan, 1933-2026. He was predeceased by Maud and survived by children including his daughter Hilary, who described him as a great man and a great dad, proud of a life that stretched from a school running record to an honorary doctorate and a housing organisation that still shelters his community.