Transcript
Redfern Speech (Year for the World's Indigenous People) – Delivered in Redfern
Park by Prime Minister Paul Keating, 10 December 1992
Ladies and gentlemen
I am very pleased to be here today at the launch of Australia's celebration of the
1993 International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to
say to ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social
In Redfern it might be tempting to think that the reality Aboriginal Australians
face is somehow contained here, and that the rest of us are insulated from it.
But of course, while all the dilemmas may exist here, they are far from contained.
We know the same dilemmas and more are faced all over Australia.
That is perhaps the point of this Year of the World's Indigenous People: to bring
the dispossessed out of the shadows, to recognise that they are part of us, and
that we cannot give indigenous Australians up without giving up many of our own
most deeply held values, much of our own identity - and our own humanity.
Nowhere in the world, I would venture, is the message more stark than it is in
Australia.
We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. Even if our own conscience allowed us
to, I am sure, that in due course, the world and the people of our region would
not.
There should be no mistake about this - our success in resolving these issues will
have a significant bearing on our standing in the world.
However intractable the problems seem, we cannot resign ourselves to failure -
any more than we can hide behind the contemporary version of Social Darwinism
which says that to reach back for the poor and dispossessed is to risk being
dragged down.
That seems to me not only morally indefensible, but bad history.
We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that Australia
once reached out for us.
All of us.
We have to give meaning to "justice" and "equity" - and, as I have said several
times this year, we will only give them meaning when we commit ourselves to
achieving concrete results.
If we improve the living conditions in one town, they will improve in another. And
another.
If we raise the standard of health by twenty per cent one year, it will be raised
more the next.
If we open one door others will follow.
When we see improvement, when we see more dignity, more confidence, more
happiness - we will know we are going to win.
We need these practical building blocks of change.
The Mabo Judgement should be seen as one of these.
By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to
the settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the
basis for justice.
It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever been the case in the
past.
For that reason alone we should ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and
hostility of the past few months.
Mabo is an historic decision - we can make it an historic turning point, the basis
of a new relationship between indigenous and non-Aboriginal Australians.
The message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition.
Even the unhappy past speaks for this.
Where Aboriginal Australians have been included in the life of Australia they have
made remarkable contributions.
their own programs.
We are beginning to learn what the indigenous people have known for many
thousands of years - how to live with our physical environment.
Ever so gradually we are learning how to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes,
beginning to recognise the wisdom contained in their epic story.
I think we are beginning to see how much we owe the indigenous Australians and how much we have
lost by living so apart.
I said we non-indigenous Australians should try to imagine the Aboriginal view.
It can't be too hard. Someone imagined this event today, and it is now a
marvellous reality and a great reason for hope.
There is one thing today we cannot imagine.
We cannot imagine that.
We cannot imagine that we will fail.
And with the spirit that is here today I am confident that we won't.
I am confident that we will succeed in this decade.
Thank you
Transcript
Redfern Speech (Year for the World's Indigenous People) – Delivered in Redfern
Park by Prime Minister Paul Keating, 10 December 1992
Ladies and gentlemen
I am very pleased to be here today at the launch of Australia's celebration of the
1993 International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to
say to ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social
In Redfern it might be tempting to think that the reality Aboriginal Australians
face is somehow contained here, and that the rest of us are insulated from it.
But of course, while all the dilemmas may exist here, they are far from contained.
We know the same dilemmas and more are faced all over Australia.
That is perhaps the point of this Year of the World's Indigenous People: to bring
the dispossessed out of the shadows, to recognise that they are part of us, and
that we cannot give indigenous Australians up without giving up many of our own
most deeply held values, much of our own identity - and our own humanity.
Nowhere in the world, I would venture, is the message more stark than it is in
Australia.
We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. Even if our own conscience allowed us
to, I am sure, that in due course, the world and the people of our region would
not.
There should be no mistake about this - our success in resolving these issues will
have a significant bearing on our standing in the world.
However intractable the problems seem, we cannot resign ourselves to failure -
any more than we can hide behind the contemporary version of Social Darwinism
which says that to reach back for the poor and dispossessed is to risk being
dragged down.
That seems to me not only morally indefensible, but bad history.
We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that Australia
once reached out for us.
All of us.
We have to give meaning to "justice" and "equity" - and, as I have said several
times this year, we will only give them meaning when we commit ourselves to
achieving concrete results.
If we improve the living conditions in one town, they will improve in another. And
another.
If we raise the standard of health by twenty per cent one year, it will be raised
more the next.
If we open one door others will follow.
When we see improvement, when we see more dignity, more confidence, more
happiness - we will know we are going to win.
We need these practical building blocks of change.
The Mabo Judgement should be seen as one of these.
By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to
the settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the
basis for justice.
It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever been the case in the
past.
For that reason alone we should ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and
hostility of the past few months.
Mabo is an historic decision - we can make it an historic turning point, the basis
of a new relationship between indigenous and non-Aboriginal Australians.
The message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition.
Even the unhappy past speaks for this.
Where Aboriginal Australians have been included in the life of Australia they have
made remarkable contributions.
their own programs.
We are beginning to learn what the indigenous people have known for many
thousands of years - how to live with our physical environment.
Ever so gradually we are learning how to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes,
beginning to recognise the wisdom contained in their epic story.
I think we are beginning to see how much we owe the indigenous Australians and how much we have
lost by living so apart.
I said we non-indigenous Australians should try to imagine the Aboriginal view.
It can't be too hard. Someone imagined this event today, and it is now a
marvellous reality and a great reason for hope.
There is one thing today we cannot imagine.
We cannot imagine that.
We cannot imagine that we will fail.
And with the spirit that is here today I am confident that we won't.
I am confident that we will succeed in this decade.
Thank you
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