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Linda Burney is the Director General of the NSW
Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
She is a member of the Wiradjuri nation of
Australia. She was the first Aboriginal person to
gain a Diploma of Teaching at what is now known as
the Bathurst campus of Charles Sturt
University.
She began a career in teaching but soon moved
into the area of policy. Linda was instrumental in
developing (and later reworking) the NSW Aboriginal
Education Policy - the first of its kind in
Australia - which is now mandatory in all schools
in NSW.
Linda was the elected President of the NSW
Aboriginal Education Consultative Group - an
influential community-based advisory body - for ten
years, during which time she also participated in a
number of boards and committees dealing with
education and Indigenous issues.
Linda has represented Aboriginal education at
the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous
Populations. She has been a board member of a wide
range of influential Australian organisations
including the multicultural broadcaster, SBS, the
NSW Board of Vocational Education and Training, the
Historic Houses Trust, the Centenary of Federation
Council, the Anti-Discrimination Board, the
University of Canberra Council and the Sydney
Institute Council of NSW TAFE.
Linda has an active involvement with the
reconciliation movement in Australia. She was
appointed to the national Council for Aboriginal
Reconciliation in 1994, and was founding Chair of
the NSW State Reconciliation Committee.
She helped organise the famous 'Peoples Walk for
Reconciliation' in 2000, in which over a quarter of
a million Australians walked across the Sydney
Harbour Bridge to demonstrate their support for a
better relationship between Indigenous and
non-lndigenous people.
Linda has received a range of awards including
the 1993 Department of School Education
Director-General's Award for Outstanding Service to
Public Schools; the NSW TAFE Medal in 1995; and the
Lipton's Australian Women's Quality of Life Award
in 1996.
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