Incoming Indigenous affairs minister Linda Burney has a long list of priorities when she is sworn in this week, but chief among them is to embark on the unfinished “nation-building project” of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
No pressure, then. Burney says the election adrenaline has worn off and now she feels as if she’s been “hit by a truck”. As the first Aboriginal woman to hold a federal ministry and to sit in the cabinet, she says: “I feel elated and daunted at the same time. I actually have a very long history in the Aboriginal affairs space. So I feel ready to take on the challenge.”
