History is written: First Australian Aboriginal woman make it to parliament, and come Walkabout campaign would fit in nicely
Photo: ABC. Linda Burney 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. "I was born at a time when the Australian government knew how how many sheep there were but not how many Aboriginal people," the former schoolteacher told the House. "I...