Senator Malarndirri McCarthy of the Northern Territory becomes Minister for Indigenous Australians in the reshuffle of the ministry. Senator McCarthy has been Assistant Minister. She is a Yanyuwa woman from the Gulf country in the NT and is a former member of the NT Legislative Assembly. She has been an NTSenator since 2016.
Defending Country President, Professor Peter Stanley, has written to Senator McCarthy, congratulating her on her appointment to Cabinet and noting the need for the Australian War Memorial to make progress on its commitment to properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Wars.
Senator McCarthy's predecessor as Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, said in 2022 that the Labor government was committed to Truth-telling about Australian colonial history ‘and a failure to see that reflected in this key institution [the Memorial] would be jarringly out of step with this new phase of national reckoning’. The defeat of the Voice referendum does not reduce the need for Truth-telling; it magnifies that need.
The Prime Minister's media release contains a full list of the new Ministry. Matt Keogh remains as Minister for Veterans' Affairs, with responsibility for the War Memorial. Matt Thistlethwaite is no longer Assistant Minister for Veterans' Affairs and that position has been abolished.
Update 31 July 2024: Minister McCarthy interviewed by Lorena Allam in Guardian Australia: need for collegiality, respectful dialogue and reaching across divides.
Image credit: Wikipedia/PMC
More from
General
category
