
Warning: This post deals with domestic violence and may be triggering for some readers.
Five years ago, Linda Burney returned home to Sydney to be with her son "one last time".
The 33-year-old had been found dead in the family's home, following a struggle with mental health and addiction.
"[Binni] is a caring and loving man... He tried so hard to conquer his demons as I and my family have tried so hard to support him in every way we could," Linda said in a statement at the time.
The mother-of-two, who had also lost her partner years earlier, found herself going through a "dire, grief-stricken time".
"I don't know what life will be like without him," she said.
A month after Binni's death, Linda was back in parliament; a place where she'd made history a year earlier as the first Indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives.
WATCH: Linda's maiden speech to parliament.
"Our lives have not been without very difficult challenges," the mother-of-two told Women's Weekly. "It hasn't been easy, but we've hung in."
Today, Linda has been sworn in as the country's new Indigenous Australians minister; the first ever Aboriginal woman and second First Nations person to hold the title.
Here's everything we know about the 65-year-old trailblazer, including her family life and career in politics.
Linda Burney's early life.
Linda grew up in the tiny town of Whitton, in NSW's Riverina, located on Wiradjuri country.
She was separated from her mother as a baby and raised by her non-Indigenous great-uncle, William, and his sister, Letitia, who were in their 60s when they took her in.
"I was born at a time when a white woman having an Aboriginal baby was shocking – and doubly so if that woman was not married," Linda said in her first speech in the House of Representatives in 2016.
"I was born at a time when the Australian government knew how many sheep there were but not how many Aboriginal people. I was 10 years old before the ‘67 referendum fixed that."