Lloyd McDermott

Early life

Lloyd Clive McDermott, Mullenjaiwakka, was born at Eidsvold in Queensland on 24 November 1939 (Rugby Australia, 2019a), the only child of Clive and Violet McDermott (Nimmo, 2019). He was a proud Mununjali and Wakka Wakka man (Deck, 2019; Perry & Knowles, 2022). His father was a farm labourer (Rugby Australia, 2019a).

Eidsvold was a segregated town where, for Aboriginal families like his, "the colour bar was fiercely enforced", and he did not start school until he was 11 (Nimmo, 2019).

School and sport

His ability in class and on the field won him a scholarship to Brisbane's Anglican Church Grammar School, where he was a sprint champion over 100 and 220 yards and played in the school's 1955 and 1957 premiership teams (Rugby Australia, 2019a). He held the Queensland 100-yard record for more than ten years (Nimmo, 2019). He met racism as a schoolboy and again at club level (Rugby Australia, 2019a).

While studying law at the University of Queensland he played on the wing for Queensland, first against Fiji in 1961. On 26 May 1962 he became Wallaby No. 470 against the All Blacks at Brisbane's Exhibition Ground, and kept his place for the second Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground (Rugby Australia, 2019a).

A stand against apartheid

In 1963 the Wallabies toured South Africa. The only way he could have played there was as an "honorary white", and he refused, making himself unavailable for the tour (Rugby Australia, 2019a). The New South Wales Bar Association records that his stand influenced white teammates who later refused to play the touring Springboks (NSW Bar Association, 2019). He never played for the Wallabies again, and moved to rugby league with Wynnum-Manly (Rugby Australia, 2019a).

The first Aboriginal barrister

He went on to earn four degrees: science and law at Queensland, criminology at Sydney and social science at the University of New South Wales (Sydney University Football Club, 2019). After working in the Commonwealth Deputy Crown Solicitor's Office in Canberra, he was called to the New South Wales Bar in June 1972 (NSW Aboriginal Land Council, 2019; NSW Bar Association, 2019), the first Aboriginal barrister anywhere in Australia (Nimmo, 2019).

He practised in criminal law, was junior counsel in Buck v Minister for Land and Water Conservation, the first native title determination in New South Wales, and served as an acting District Court judge and a commissioner of the Land and Environment Court (NSW Bar Association, 2019). He was a long-time trustee of the Bar's Mum Shirl Fund for Indigenous barristers and opened the first National Indigenous Legal Conference in 2006 (NSW Bar Association, 2019). A judge he mentored remembered that he "took every opportunity to promote young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lawyers" (Proctor, 2026).

The Lloydies

In 1991 he founded the Lloyd McDermott Rugby Development Team, the "Lloydies" (Nimmo, 2019), with Rugby Australia, the Ella brothers and a group of lawyers (Rugby Australia, 2019a; Sydney University Football Club, 2019). It gives young Indigenous players scholarships, camps and mentoring (Rugby Australia, 2019a). Gary Ella said his work "positively influenced thousands of young Indigenous people around Australia" (Rugby Australia, 2019a).

Jazz, family and honours

He played guitar with the Johnny Nicol jazz band, and his daughter Phillipa said that "at heart he was a jazz musician trapped in a lawyer's body" (Nimmo, 2019). He refused Australia Day honours several times "until the rights of Aboriginal people were recognised" (Rugby Australia, 2019a), and turned down the Order of Australia: "No 'white man's award' for me" (Nimmo, 2019). In 2016 he was named a Queensland Great (Palaszczuk, 2016), and in 2009 the Bar Association of Queensland named its Mullenjaiwakka Trust for Indigenous Legal Students after him (Rugby Australia, 2019a).

Legacy

He died at his home in Sydney on 6 April 2019, aged 79 (Rugby Australia, 2019a). On 9 July 2022, before the Test against England at Suncorp Stadium, the Wallabies sang the national anthem in Yugambeh with the Yugambeh Youth Choir in his honour (Rugby Australia, 2022; Perry & Knowles, 2022). Since 2023 the Indigenous Lawyers Association of Queensland has held an annual Mullenjaiwakka Oration in his memory (Gauld, 2023).