Already making history, the newly elected Labor Government have included both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in press conference backdrops.
Before Anthony Albanese made his first press conference as Prime Minister of Australia, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flags will be sitting in the background.
In a history-making move the newly elected Labor Government have installed mounts for both the Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag in the ‘blue room’ - where parliamentary press conferences are held.
Under the former Liberal Government, the only flag situated in the background was the national flag.
The flags in Senate
The change comes two years after the Liberal Party voted down a motion by Labor to hang the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in the Senate.
The motion called for the flags to sit alongside the national flag, however was voted down in NAIDOC week.
It was voted down 28-29, with the Government and some crossbenchers noting that only the national flag would be “appropriate” in the Senate.
NT Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, at the time, said the both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags were recognised under the Flags Act of 1953 as flags of Australia.
Labor's Malarndirri McCarthy and Linda Burney with the Aboriginal flag. Source: SBS News
"Why is it in this week of NAIDOC, could the government be so mean spirited? The government has actually had this motion before them for three months," Ms McCarthy said in parliament at the time.
