Search begins for Australia's first Indigenous PM

The winners of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience's speech competition met with politicians in Canberra today.

indigenous_pm_aime_sbs.jpg

(SBS)

Their speeches, read as if they had just been elected the first Indigenous prime minister, were chosen as the top three out of 600 entries.

Winners Danae, Jayden and Shannon were chosen from hundreds of AIME students from across the country.

The trio today met with politicians from both sides of the house and were hosted by the Governor General Quentin Bryce at a special event at Government House.

Winner Danae, from Melbourne, said she didn’t know where she would be without the program.

"Well it's made me more motivated to finish school," she said.

"Because sometimes it's get hard."

Shannon said he wanted to use his newfound confidence to start a career in media.

"I want to be a TV presenter or a radio host," he said.

Jack Manning-Bancroft started AIME back in 2005, while he was a student at Sydney University, and said the results since then had been fantastic.

Participants in the AIME program finish school at the same rate as their non-Indigenous counterparts and Mr Manning-Bancroft said they want to expand even further.

"With some extra money from the federal government and state governments we can really scale this thing up. We're only looking for $1000 per kid, which is nothing compared to some of the money being thrown around in the Indigenous space," he said.


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2 min read

Published

Updated

By Brooke Boney

Source: NITV News


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