Ken Wyatt was chosen this week to be Australia’s minister for indigenous Australians, the first Aboriginal person ever to hold the role.<\/p>\n
It’s a historic appointment which also makes him the first indigenous Australian to sit in cabinet.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcements as part of his revamped ministry, following a surprise election victory on 18 May.<\/p>\n
Many indigenous Australians are celebrating the elevation of Mr Wyatt, a 66-year-old conservative MP.<\/p>\n
But deep challenges lie ahead for the newly appointed minister, as Australia grapples with major debates over indigenous recognition and inequality.<\/p>\n
Career marked by firsts<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2010 Mr Wyatt became the first Aboriginal man to be elected to the House of Representatives, winning the Western Australian seat of Hasluck.<\/p>\n In his maiden speech, he wore something rarely seen in the parliament.<\/p>\n It was a kangaroo skin coat, adorned with feathers of a red-tailed black cockatoo, known as a booka – a symbol of Aboriginal leadership, presented by elders.<\/p>\n He later became minister for aged care and indigenous health – an outer ministry position, meaning he did not sit in cabinet.<\/p>\n Before entering politics, the Noongar man worked as a primary school teacher and as a senior public health official.<\/p>\n His mother, Mona Abdullah, was one of the “Stolen Generations” – Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their parents under infamous government policies aimed at assimilation.<\/p>\n In parliament, Mr Wyatt has won respect for sticking to his beliefs – even occasionally threatening to vote against his own party on specific issues.<\/p>\n He has also sometimes drawn criticism, such as for resisting calls while aged care minister to mandate staffing levels in aged care facilities. Aged care settings are currently the subject of a national inquiry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ken Wyatt was chosen this week to be Australia’s minister for indigenous Australians, the first Aboriginal person ever to hold the role. It’s a historic appointment which also makes him the first indigenous Australian to sit in cabinet. Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcements as part of his revamped ministry, following a surprise election […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-breaking-news"],"views":6,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions\/2415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldinsight.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}