The New South Wales deputy opposition leader, Linda Burney, has announced she is quitting state politics to run for a seat in the federal election.

If successful, she will be the first Indigenous women to be elected to the House of Representatives.

Burney is seeking Labor preselection in the federal seat of Barton, in southern Sydney, ahead of the election later this year.

“I want it to be very clear that I will not be defined by my Aboriginality – it is who I am, it is what I stand for,” she told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

“I have a much broader view of the world and will not be shanghaied into that small, small box.”

Burney is the state Labor member for Canterbury, having become the first Indigenous Australian to serve in the NSW parliament when she was elected in 2003.

The switch will require a byelection in Canterbury and for her to vacate the deputy opposition leader position in NSW Labor.

The federal opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Burney had passion and integrity.

The federal opposition leader, Bill Shorten, with Linda Burney at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The NSW Labor leader, Luke Foley, said she would make a fine contribution and her experience would be an asset for Shorten and the federal ALP team.

The seat of Barton has been extensively redrawn in the redistribution, changing it from a marginal Liberal seat to marginal Labor.

It has been held by the Liberals’ Nickolas Varvaris since 2013, but before that was held by Labor’s Robert McClelland since 1996.