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For Labor MP Linda Burney, there was never a question about what colour she would wear in her official portrait as the first Aboriginal woman elected to the House of Representatives. The portrait, unveiled at Parliament House on Wednesday, depicts a proud, determined Burney wearing a fabulous red ensemble by Australian designer Carla Zampatti. "I didn't want it to be another portrait of someone in a suit," the Labor frontbencher says of the painting, which will be displayed in a gallery dominated by white, male former prime ministers and presiding officers. For the Sydney MP, red is "the most powerful of all colours". "I think when you wear red, you just feel taller and it really is a very active colour." It is also the colour of Burney's beloved Labor Party. Before she was elected as the member for Barton - in Sydney's south-west - in 2016, she had already had a 13-year career in state politics. She was the first Indigenous person to be elected to NSW parliament, rising to Minister for Community Services and then deputy leader of the opposition under Luke Foley. When Parliament House officials invited her to have her portrait done, Burney toured the National Portrait Gallery looking for inspiration. As part of her careful consideration about the symbolism of her portrait, she chose Sydney artist Jude Rae, who has also painted portraits of former speaker, Anna Burke and first female Chief Justice Susan Kiefel. "I was very keen to have a woman do my portrait", she says. She was inspired to wear a wide, silver ring in the portrait in an echo of the shining blue ring worn by Neville Bonner in a portrait of the first Indigenous Australian to be elected to federal parliament. In a further touch, Rae painted the Aboriginal flag onto Burney's ring. "That's my little shout out about my identity and my heritage," Burney says. A Wiradjuri woman, Burney was raised by her mother's aunt and uncle. As she told Parliament in her first speech, "I was born at a time when a white woman having an Aboriginal baby was shocking and doubly so if that woman was not married." In her Canberra office ahead of the unveiling, Burney's voice cracks when she explains the significance of the earrings she wears in the portrait, which acknowledge her son, Binni, who died in 2017. "The earrings I chose were a special gift from a dear friend when my son passed away," she says. "So that was the connection there." While Burney insists she does not like being the centre of attention, she is keenly aware of her power as a role model. "I am constantly overwhelmed and truly touched by the many people that approach me at events, at functions, in the street, on the train, in the supermarket, to say 'thank you so much for the work that you do, you are an inspiration to me.'" The former school teacher is particularly touched when she is approached by young Indigenous people. "Clearly they saw in me possibility. And that's what I like to represent." Burney, who is poised to become minister for families and social services and minister for preventing family violence should Labor win the upcoming federal election, says she is guided by the "the notion of reciprocity" in her work and life. "What Aboriginal life is based on, what Aboriginal culture is based on ... is the notion of reciprocity. What you give, you get back." She expresses frustration at Scott Morrison's recent announcement he would spend $6.7 million on a replica of Captain James Cook's Endeavour, which the Prime Minister says will bring Australians together. "The idea that a circumnavigation of Australian in a replica of the Endeavour is going to bring people together is just nuts. It's insulting, it's misdirected." Disappointed at the lack of bipartisanship on issues such as an Indigenous voice to Parliament, Burney says MPs must read the mood of the public. "I don't think the public's scared of the truth and they understand well about where guilt lies," she says. "Non-Aboriginal Australians today are not responsible for what happened in the colonial period. But we all are responsible, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians for what happens now." After eight hours of sittings and many months of work, Burney first saw the finished portrait in Rae's Redfern studio. "I loved it. It captures me, I think, really well," she says, adding, "It's kind of nice to think you're going to be in perpetuity." But she insists the picture really represents all the people who made it possible for her to come to Canberra. "I don't see it as being about me. I really don't."

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