Delivering her first speech as Labor member for the New South Wales seat of Barton in Sydney’s south, Burney donned a kangaroo skin cloak featuring her clan totem, the goanna, and her personal totem, the white cockatoo, which she described as “the noisy messenger bird”.
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The cloak told the story of a “freshwater kid from the Riverina”, whose first 10 years were spent in a time when the number of sheep in the country was counted, but not the number of Aboriginal people.
She also recalled being a 13-year-old Aboriginal girl in a school classroom, struggling with her identity and being taught that her ancestors were “the closest thing to stone-age”.
In a day of firsts with the return of parliament, Western Australian Labor MP Anne Aly became the first Muslim woman to take her place in Parliament and she did so by taking her oath on the Koran.
Linda Burney, the first indigenous woman to be elected to the Australian House of Representatives, has given her maiden speech highlighting her opposition to planned changes in the Racial Discrimination Act and sending a message of hope.
She told the story of her upbringing, included being negatively stereotyped by teachers and townspeople, and recognised the impact her position could have on inspiring young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
But the chamber felt a long way from that, she said.
She told the federal parliament on Wednesday she was deeply moved to have journeyed to a “powerful place”.
‘However I say to my elders, that the last bit may not always apply in question time’.
“These lands are, always were and always will be Aboriginal land”, she said.
Burney wants Constitutional recognition so that Parliament and the Australian people could continue on the path towards reconciliation.
Burney holds the federal seat of Barton, which is named after Australia’s former prime minister Edmund Barton, the man who introduced the white Australia policy, and acknowledged that it is now one of the most multicultural in the country.
She promised to push for education, a reduction in the rate of juvenile imprisonment and the end of domestic violence.
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“If I can stand in this place, so can they”.
