Darwin councillor and ‘Laska Queen’ Amye Un launches Lord Mayoral bid

It’s been a turbulent couple of years for Darwin’s Laksa Queen, but despite this she says she’s ready to put her hand up and run for Lord Mayor for a second time. Find out what she had to say.

Amye Un, otherwise known as the 'Laksa Queen', ran for the seat of Fong Lim in the 2024 Northern Territory election. Picture: Harry Brill

Darwin councillor Amye Un – known locally as Darwin’s ‘Laksa Queen’ – says serving her community is what’s driving her bid to become the city’s next Lord Mayor.

“My community put their trust in me, and my community chose me for the last four years,” she told the NT News.

“And they still want me, and I want my community’s voice to be heard.”

Over the past 24 months, Ms Un has been found to have beached the council’s code of conduct 23 times for reasons such as bullying and respect for cultural diversity.

She has vehemently questioned the fairness of these complaints, claiming she was a victim of bullying and that her comments were misrepresented due to a language barrier.

Ms Un – who was born in East Timor – has regularly shared on social media that English is her “number five language” and that she would never purposely threaten council workers.

Ms Un has ran in a number of elections over the years. Picture: Harry Brill

Regardless of the past, it was clear when the Laksa Queen spoke to the NT News that she wanted to focus on the future.

“My community is my boss; community comes first,” she said.

“I don’t care what the past situation is, I put everything behind me and put my community in front.”

She said the role of Lord Mayor was ultimately a team effort.

“I have to trust my team and give respect to all the team so we can work together under one umbrella,” she said.

“One stick can’t pick up the rubbish, okay? We have to work together to clean this town up.”

Ms Un said that part of cleaning up the town was continuing the work already started by the current council to “make Darwin better”.

“The council has already made so many things happen,” she said.

“We need to improve how we can make our city more beautiful.”

Ms Un says she wants to run a positive campaign. Picture: Harry Brill

In terms of her view on the current council, Ms Un said she had “no comment” and wanted to run a positive campaign.

“We have to do the right thing, be clean and be honest to our community,” she said.

“Honesty is very important.

“We should be able to come to our community and ask them ‘What do you want us to do?’, and then we do it.”

To keep up to date with Ms Un’s campaign, follow her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amyelaksaqueen

Originally published as Darwin councillor and ‘Laska Queen’ Amye Un launches Lord Mayoral bid