First Aboriginal woman MP makes history

The first Aboriginal woman elected to Australia’s lower house of parliament has promised to bring the “fighting spirit of her clan” to political life. In her maiden speech, Linda Burney wore a traditional kangaroo-skin cloak with her personal totem, the white cockatoo, known as the noisy messenger bird. She lambasted calls for the Racial Discrimination […]

The first Aboriginal woman elected to Australia’s lower house of parliament has promised to bring the “fighting spirit of her clan” to political life.
In her maiden speech, Linda Burney wore a traditional kangaroo-skin cloak with her personal totem, the white cockatoo, known as the noisy messenger bird.
She lambasted calls for the Racial Discrimination Act to be watered down.
She warned that indigenous Australians still suffered disproportionately high rates of poverty and ill-health.
Usual protocol in the House of Representatives in Canberra was relaxed to allow a woman from Ms Burney’s Wiradjuri clan to sing a welcome from the public gallery.
Referring to her people, she promised to bring the Wiradjuri fighting spirit into federal parliament.