Labor’s Linda Burney Becomes 1st Indigenous Woman In The House Of Reps

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Published

July 2, 2016

Australia, you’re still in for a long night of vote counting, but get around this: we’re set for our first ever Indigenous woman to take a seat in the House of Representatives.

Linda Burney, the Labor candidate for the NSW seat of Barton, has been called as the winner after edging out Liberal incumbent Nickolas Varvaris.

Linda Burney gets heroes welcome at Barton #ausvotes @abcnews pic.twitter.com/yCbAtRZfDd

— Alison Branley (@Ally__bee) July 2, 2016

At time of writing, nearly half of the votes have been counted, indicating a considerable lead in both first preferences and preference counts:

Speaking to Sky News, Burney made reference of the Liberal’s very late resurgence in the electorate (despite a spate of dodgily-addressed letters from Varvaris’ office).

She said “there was some ugliness at the booth and the kitchen sink was thrown at us in the last few days,” but the early ALP victor benefited from a sizeable swing in her favour.

RT @Y7News: ALP’s Linda Burney first aboriginal woman in Parliament with historic Barton win. https://t.co/Ccn8xjFxWY

— Kirsty Wilson (@kirsty_wilson) July 2, 2016

There was some brouhaha about the fact Barton was recently amended to include some traditionally Labor regions, but hey, a win is a win.

Burney is a former state politician who was also the first Aboriginal woman to become an MP in New South Wales; before that, she tackled Indigenous issues for the state’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

Go on, you good thing.

Source: The Australian / Sydney Morning Herald / ABC.
Photo: Linda Burney / Facebook.