Last month’s Australian national elections were historic as the first Aborigine was elected to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament in Australia.
Ken Wyatt, an Aboriginal health and education expert, won a seat for the centre-right Liberal Party for the constituency of Hasluck in the state of Western Australia.
Since the election, Wyatt said he has received phone calls, emails and hate mail from people who said they would not have voted for him had they known he was Aborigine.
Wyatt is the third indigenous Australian ever to be elected to either houses of parliament. Previously Neville Bonner (1971-1983) and Aden Ridgeway (1999-2005) served in the Senate, the upper chamber of parliament.
