When Stan Grant finished his powerful address at the National Press Club, he walked off the stage and had a tearful embrace with his Aunt Elaine.
It was a fitting end to a powerful speech which touched on the sometimes sad history of his family, the notion of the Aboriginal identity, and how Australia moves towards reconciliation.
But the question everyone came for, remains unanswered: 'Is Stan Grant considering running for federal politics?'
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“This is an election year. The time is short, the number of seats is finite, the number of seats I could win are even less I hesitate to say,” he told the audience at the National Press Club in Canberra.
“So, yes, I've had conversations with people. If we don't get involved, then we're nowhere. Is it me? Is it this year? Is it this time? I need a lot more things to line up before I can take that step.”
NITV has been told the Liberal and Labor parties have been sounding out Stan Grant over the last few months since went viral.
The managing editor of NITV also lamented the state of Aboriginal affairs in Australia.
"Too often, it is treated as a sideshow of conflict and misery or completely overlooked by the mainstream media," he told the Press Club.
“Why can’t we be in the fabric of the body politic? Why can’t we be held to the same account?” he asked.
'I need to get a lot more things to line up before I take this step': Stan Grant addresses the question of whether he would stand in the 2016 federal election. Source: NITV News
“Let’s have a contest of ideas about Aboriginal affairs. Let’s apply the blowtorch to it in the same way we applied the blowtorch to taxation policy.”
Promoting his new book, 'Talking to My Country', he also said he supported more stringent tests of Aboriginality, but not as a tool to hound people away from their identity.
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It came as News Corp papers reported over the weekend that numerous Aboriginal elders were worried by more Australian’s claiming an extremely distant or unsupported Indigenous heritage.
“Let not this be a smokescreen for attacking the fragility of our identities because people are fragile and vulnerable,” Stan said in response to a question about identity.
“[But] let's by all means have good governance and transparency and openness. That's what taxpayers demand, that's what our communities demand.”
