Tony Abbott comments about female Aboriginal Prime Minister encouraging if slightly off the mark

The statement by Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, about an Aboriginal woman one day becoming Prime Minister is welcome because it shows that Australia can no longer turn a blind eye to the lack of Aboriginal representation, a point taken by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who suggested quotas might be the answer.

The make-up of parliaments should reflect the people they govern.

There is a big difference, however, between Aborigines being elected to parliaments and Aborigines elected to represent their own people. It is numerically impossible for indigenous peoples to put an indigenous Prime Minister in that high office. Any such result would remain token: the indigenous PM would be indebted to the political party and the electorate that put them into the Parliament. Necessarily, they could not represent Aborigines, just as NT Chief Minister Adam Giles cannot represent Aborigines in the NT. Nor for that matter, can existing Liberal or ALP federal parliamentary members such as Ken Wyatt or Nova Peris do more than occasionally speak up for Aborigines.

Designated seats, long promoted by Reconciliation Australia, and considered by the 1998 NSW and 2003 Queensland Parliamentary Enquiries into under-representation of Aboriginal people in Australian democracy, could ideally 8 Aboriginal representative to the Federal Parliament making 8 indigenous representatives out of 158.

If designated seats is too controversial then a new Aboriginal Assembly should be established by Prime Minister Abbott. This does not require constitutional amendment. It simply requires Federal legislation.
Michael Mansell, Aboriginal lawyer