Well Keating may be losing it over who wrote his famous speech from 1992, but at least he had the courage, dignity and compassion to say it, all those years ago. And yet, now in 2010 the country is struggling to find an eligible Prime Minister that can stand up in front of the country and speak with honesty and intelligence. To think that a Prime Minister stood up proudly in front of the country 18 years ago and uttered the below words without questioning his popularity or how he would be perceived by the racists in the country, sadly shocks me now; in contrast to the backwards steps Australia took during the following 12 years of little Johnny and recently with both 'major'/minor parties campaigning with slogans of "we'll stop the boats" and no mentioning of ending the NT Intervention...
The correlation between what Paul Keating said way back then and what should still be an issue for potential political leaders to be discussing cannot be avoided.
It begins, I think, with the act of recognition. Recognition that it was we who did the dispossessing. We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the disasters. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion.
It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine these things being done to us. With some noble exceptions, we failed to make the most basic human response and enter into their hearts and minds. We failed to ask - how would I feel if this were done to me?
As a consequence, we failed to see that what we were doing degraded all of us.
If we needed a reminder of this, we received it this year. The Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody showed with devastating clarity that the past lives on in inequality, racism and injustice in the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians, and in the demoralisation and desperation, the fractured identity, of so many Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/92-12-10redfern-speech.shtml
And in relation to the racist political campaigns broadcast by both Gillard and Abbott in connection to their slogans "we'll stop the boats", one can also refer back to Paul Keatings words and his acknowledgment of Australia's multicultural past and the history of playing our part in helping a small number of the world's refugees.
We non-Aboriginal Australians should perhaps remind ourselves that Australia once reached out for us. Didn't Australia provide opportunity and care for the dispossessed Irish? The poor of Britain? The refugees from war and famine and persecution in the countries of Europe and Asia? Isn't it reasonable to say that if we can build a prosperous and remarkably harmonious multicultural society in Australia, surely we can find just solutions to the problems which beset the first Australians - the people to whom the most injustice has been done. http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/92-12-10redfern-speech.shtml
When reviewing this speech (and ignoring Paul Keating's current rants on ownership of the writing) it really is incredibly shocking to see how our once progressive, compassionate and intelligent leader uttered these words and how much since it, Australia has regressed to its racist, fearful and parnoid past. The only politician that speaks with such pride, intelligence and compassion now is the new Greens MP Adam Bandt and all I can hope is that his presence in the HoR now can mean a shift back to Australia's promising future.
As Paul Keating said,
I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit.
All of us. http://australianpolitics.com/executive/keating/92-12-10redfern-speech.shtml
Now that's not too hard is it Australia? You made your stance in the recent election and increased your votes for the Greens, which means they can now play a larger role in implementing progressive policy into the Australian Parliament, which clearly resulted from them being the only party that actually presented policy and contributed to intelligent debate prior to the election. The added advantage of this movement and the lack of any difference between the two minor leaders creating a hung parliament, also means for the first time that the fakeness, deceit and manipulation that occured in the campaign will be closely scrutinised by the independents before Australia is given the result...so isn't it time to help promote the start of another new era in politics and society? To start a call to action, that demands a strong leader, one who can stand up in front of the nation and say what they think, without questioning if it is popular, without editing themselves to see if it will get votes, but a leader that simply sees the racisim, the deceit, the regression of Australia and decides to make it stop! As Paul Keating said, "the past lives on in inequality, racism and injustice in the prejudice and ignorance of non-Aboriginal Australians" so let's start a future for Australia that does not include any of those traits.
Paul Keating's famous speech from 1992 can be read here and listened to here. Let's hope there are more speeches like this to come in the future of Australia...
Posted via email from PunchyP
