Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt wants Eddie McGuire to stay on as Collingwood president so he can learn from systemic racism at the football club.
There are growing calls for McGuire to resign after describing the release of a damning review into toxic racism as a proud day for the Magpies.
But Mr Wyatt believes he is still the best person to drive change at the club.
"My personal view would be not to remove Eddie because Eddie is a still man of influence in a broader arena," he told ABC radio on Thursday.
Mr Wyatt, who has read the independent report, says it points to systemic practices McGuire could learn from.
"To undo systemic practices you need to take people through a learning process," he said.
"I would rather see, on a personal basis, Eddie go through that systemic practice learning process so that wherever he ends up in his lifetime, then he's in a position to say 'look, when I was at Collingwood, this was not appropriate'."
Mr Wyatt said only once McGuire had gone through the process would his behaviour change.
"We've seen Eddie do some foot in the mouth stuff that has been highly offensive, particularly around the couple of incidents with Adam Goodes."
McGuire, who was appointed Collingwood president in 1998, will relinquish the role at the end of the year.
He has been credited with transforming the struggling club into a powerhouse, but his time at the Magpies has not been without controversy.
McGuire apologised in 2013 after suggesting Goodes, an Indigenous star at the Sydney Swans, should be used to promote the musical King Kong.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt Source: AAP
His comments came just days after Goodes was racially abused by a Collingwood supporter during a match at the MCG.
Three years later, he issued another apology for making a joke about drowning AFL journalist Caroline Wilson.
In 2019 he was was forced to apologise after mocking double amputee Cynthia Banham when she conducted the coin toss before an AFL match at the SCG.
