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| home | news lAboriginal candidate makes NSW historyBy Jim O'Rouke 23 Linda Burney, who won the safe Labor seat of Canterbury, in Sydney's inner-west, became the 11th Aboriginal MP and only the fourth indigenous woman elected to any Australian Parliament. Ms Burney, 45, said the first task of her new career was to resign as director-general of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs. One of the state's highest-profile Aboriginal women, she won preselection for the blue-ribbon Labor electorate after all her opponents, including the sitting MP Kevin Moss, withdrew from the contest after ALP head office indicated it wanted to put more women into winnable seats. Ms Burney has been active on issues including Aboriginal reconciliation and has served on the board of SBS, the Anti-Discrimination Board and has chaired the NSW Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and the State Reconciliation Committee. Yesterday, visiting campaign workers at St Stephanos Greek Orthodox Church at Hurlstone Park with her children Binni, 18 and Willurei, 17, she said she felt the excitement in the electorate that she was making political history. "I think the people in Canterbury are excited that they are helping to create a little piece of history," Ms Burney said. But she said she wanted to tackle a wide range of policy issues when she takes her seat in Parliament. "I want to focus on young people. "During the campaign we had a number of young people approach us, wanting a voice in Canterbury. "Another thing that struck me deeply over the campaign was the needs of older people across all nationalities in the electorate." Canterbury is a culturally diverse seat with people from about 130 different national backgrounds. Ms Burney toured the electorate yesterday with her partner, the former outspoken head of the National Farmers Federation, Rick Farley, now a consultant working on land conservation and native title issues and an unsuccessful Democrats candidate for the Senate in 1998. Ms Burney was brought up by her elderly white great aunt Nina and great uncle Billy, a brother and sister, in the small southern NSW town of Whitton. She met her Wiradjuri father when she was 27.
The first Aboriginal Australian to win a seat in Parliament wasQueensland Senator Neville Bonner in 1971. The first Aboriginal woman voted in was Carol Martin, elected to the West Australian Parliament in 2001. Source:The Sydney Morning Herald Forget black and white, this is about grey matter15 May 2003 - Linda Burney is woman who does not want to be labelled as having a singular perspective, says PIERS AKERMAN. Linda Burney, the first acknowledged Aborigine to be elected to the NSW Parliament, is proud of her indigenous heritage but doesn't want that element of her make-up to become the sole identifying characteristic of her political career. "I don't want to be labelled 'indigenous' and I'm determined not to be pigeon-holed," she told me. "I go to the supermarket, I've raised kids, taught school, I do things every Australian does. "I have views on issues other than indigenous and I want to be known for those views." Few wish to be labelled as if a specimen in a museum drawer, yet Mrs Burney has drawn upon her Aboriginality as an activist to such a degree that distancing herself from that persona may present a problem for the former director-general of the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs. The new MP for Canterbury is adamant however that seats should not be set aside at the state or federal level for Aboriginal people, although she is relaxed about the possibility of some affirmative action presenting Aborigines with involvement in local government in areas where they are significantly represented in the local population. "Local government provides a terrific path into state and federal politics," she said. Inher maiden speech, Mrs Burney frankly and movingly outlined some of her earliest emotions about being Aboriginal. "Growing up as an Aboriginal child looking into the mirror of our country was difficult and alienating," she told Parliament. "Your reflection in the mirror was at best ugly and distorted, and at worst non-existent. "I did not grow up knowing my Aboriginal family. I met my father, Noddy Ingram, in 1984. His first words to me were: 'I hope I don't disappoint you.' "I have now met 10 brothers and sisters. We grew up 40 minutes apart. That was the power of racism and denial in the 50s that was so overbearing." Linda Burney was born to a white mother and an Aboriginal father in 1957 in the Riverina district. "In those days it was pretty shocking at two levels, being both an Aboriginal child and out of wedlock," she said. To defuse the potentially disruptive situation, she went to live with her mother Rita's aunt and uncle, Nina and Billy Lang, a spinster and bachelor, in their mid-to-late 60s in Whitton. Mrs Burney doesn't use the term "part-Aboriginal". She calls herself either "Aboriginal" or "indigenous, using the terms interchangeably. "As a teenager you can pretend you're not [Aboriginal] or chose to live with the truth. I preferred not to live a dreadful lie," she said. "I've got Aboriginal and European relations but Aboriginality in Australia is self-identification. I see myself as an indigenous person, so for me it's an unnecessary debate." She is proud to be "part of the oldest continuous surviving culture on the planet" although she admits that for most Aborigines who have not lost their sense of identity that their culture exists only through a sense of country, family and place, which sounds like most Australians no matter what their background. The question of what constitutes Aboriginality is just as paradoxical, as only 1.2 per cent of the 2.2 per cent of Australians who claimed in the last census to be indigenous also profess to follow traditional custom. Mrs Burney was raised in an overwhelmingly Anglo culture, encouraged to study hard and reap educational rewards, first at Leeton High School, then at Penrith High before winning a NSW Government scholarship to what was then Mitchell College of Advanced Education and is now Charles Sturt University, at Bathurst. She went on to teach at Lethbridge and Mt Druitt in 1979-1980, establishing am easy rapport with her pupils. "They were big schools. Mt Druitt's pupils were mainly from single parent homes in public housing but it was wonderful, a fabulous couple of years. I remember the kids that I taught," she said. Many of them were poor. Some were troubled. But Mrs Burney, identifying to a degree with some of their anxieties, found she could offer encouragement. "You become aware of being different early on,' she told me. "It was full in-the-face a number of times, certainly as I grew up. "The thing for me is that I believe a lot of people face adversity. It's not just an Aboriginal thing. There are plenty of non-Aboriginals in adversity. But it can strengthen you or it can flatten you and I place myself in the former category. She has a 19-year-old son who has just finished his HSC and a daughter, 17, who is in Year 12. Both live with their father just two streets from the home she shares with her partner, Rick Farley, a former National Farmers Federation spokesman. Aborigine, indigenous or just Australian, this interesting and articulate addition to Macquarie Street will be worth watching. Source:The Daily Telegraph
Aboriginal MP fulfills dream By Peter Williams March 24, 2003 - Linda Burney is proud to be the first Aborigine elected to the NSW parliament, but warns she doesn’t want to be pigeonholed away in indigenous affairs. After four years with the state’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs - finishing up as its director-general - and an earlier stint in indigenous education, Ms Burney is looking to broaden her horizons professionally. “I’m pretty over the idea that if you’re Aboriginal the only thing you know is Aboriginal affairs, the only thing you can think about is Aboriginal affairs, the only thing you can talk about is Aboriginal affairs,” she said. “It’s a nonsense. Indigenous people should be considered for positions in the mainstream as well as indigenous affairs, and that’s one of the motivations for me.” Ms Burney, 45, said she fulfilled a personal dream when she was elected to parliament on Saturday - in the safe Labor seat of Canterbury in Sydney’s south-west. Raised in the NSW Riverina, she began her career as a primary school teacher in Sydney’s west. Her involvement in community activism culminated in a major role organising Corroboree 2000 and the reconciliation walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ms Burney, a mother of two children who counts former Victorian premier Joan Kirner among her mentors, said moving into politics was a natural career progression. But she brushed off media speculation of being a ministerial candidate, saying she would concentrate on working for people in her electorate. “I don’t expect a ministry first up, no,” she said. “No one’s spoken to me about it, let’s just put it that way. “I’m not pre-empting anything. I’ll be very happy in the first instance to be the member for Canterbury.” Pressed further about her political ambitions, Ms Burney had only this to say: “I don’t believe in chopping wood for practice.” Despite her plans to work outside indigenous issues, she would not be abandoning her involvement in the reconciliation movement. “That’s not about a job, that’s about life.” Source: AAP
25 March 2003 - Linda Burney, the first indigenous person elected to State Parliament, yesterday said she didn’t want to be the next Aboriginal Affairs minister. “I’m over the idea that if you’re Aboriginal the only thing you know is Aboriginal affairs, the only thing you can think about is Aboriginal affairs,” the new MP for Canterbury said. “Indigenous people should be considered for positions in the mainstream as well as indigenous affairs, and that’s one of the motivations for me.” Yesterday, she quit as director-general of the NSW Aboriginal Affairs department. The existing Aboriginal Affairs minister is Andrew Refshauge, who leads the ALP’s left-wing of which Ms Burney is a member. Raised in the Riverina, she began her career as a primary school teacher in Sydney’s west. Her involvement in community activism culminated in a major role organising Corroboree 2000 and the reconciliation walk across Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ms Burney, mother of two who counts former Victorian premier Joan Kirner among her mentors, said moving into politics was a natural career progression. But she brushed off ministerial speculation, saying she would concentrate on her electorate. “I don’t expect a ministry first up, no,” she said. “No one’s spoken to me about it, let’s just put it that way. “I’m not pre-empting anything. I’ll be very happy in the first instance to be the member for Canterbury.” Pressed further about her political ambitions, she had only this to say: “I don’t believe in chopping wood for practice.” Source: The Daily Telegraph Further Reading
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March 2003 - The first Aboriginal Australian to be voted into the 147-year-old NSW Parliament was elected last night.
"During the campaign I've had lots of calls from Aboriginal groups and people from around the state wishing me luck and congratulating me on getting preselected," she said.
