Australia will have the first Indigenous woman elected to the lower house of the federal parliament, with Linda Burney claiming victory in the marginal seat of Barton.
Burney, the former deputy leader of the New South Wales Labor party, called her election in the southern Sydney seat on Saturday night.
The Wiradjuri woman resigned from the NSW parliament in March and announced she was running for the federal seat of Barton. The seat was a marginal Liberal one but after redistribution became a notionally marginal Labor seat.
Burney claimed victory after 7pm on Saturday.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” Burney told Sky News.
“Barton has created history tonight in Australia by electing the first indigenous woman to the House of Representatives.”
This is 2nd time Linda Burney has made history,she was first Aboriginal person elected to NSW parliament in 2003 #IndigenousVotes #ausvotes
— Allan Clarke (@AllanJClarke) July 2, 2016
She thanked her supporters and said the support in the community had been “astounding”.
“There was some ugliness earlier in the day at the booths and [everything and] the kitchen sink has been thrown in the last couple of days,” she said.
A record number of Indigenous candidates stood in this year’s federal election for various parties with eight women and five men running for parliament.
Burney used her last speech in the NSW parliament to criticise the “paternalistic” approach to Aboriginal affairs.
Burney ran against Liberal MP Nickolas Varvaris.
