TheRedfern Park Speech,also known as theRedfern speechorRedfern address,was made on 10 December 1992 by the thenAustralian Prime Minister,Paul Keating,at Redfern Park, which is inRedfern, New South Wales,an inner city suburb ofSydney.The speech dealt with the challenges faced byIndigenous Australians,bothAboriginal AustralianandTorres Strait Islanderpeoples. It is still remembered as one of the most powerful speeches in Australian history, both for its rhetorical eloquence and for its ground-breaking admission of the negative impact ofwhite settlement in Australiaon its Indigenous peoples,cultureand society, in the first acknowledgement by theAustralian Governmentof the dispossession of its First Peoples. It has been described as "a defining moment in the nation'sreconciliation with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people".
The spirit and name of Keating's Redfern speech was invoked by theRedfern Statement,a policy statement from a large group of Indigenous bodies issued on 9 June 2016, shortly before the2016 Australian federal election.Among other things, the Statement called for the creation of a new dedicated department to deliver programs for Indigenous advancement.
Background and description
editThe speech was delivered by Keating on 10 December 1992, just under a year into his term asPrime Minister of Australia,to a crowd of predominantly Indigenous people gathered at Redfern Park, in Redfern, Sydney.[1]It was given to launch theInternational Year for the World's Indigenous People(1993).[2][3][4]
Keating's choice of location was significant; Redfern had been the centre of Aboriginal (or more specifically,Koori) culture and activism in Sydney for decades. The speech came only six months after theAustralian High Court's historicMabo decision,which had overturned the legal fiction ofterra nullius,and recognisednative title in Australiafor the first time. The speech reflected this shift in thinking, and used words reflecting partnership and reconciliation; ultimately it reflected a changing official interpretation of Australia's history.[2]
Keating was the first Australian prime minister to publicly acknowledge to Indigenous Australians that European settlers were responsible for the difficulties Australian Aboriginal communities continued to face: "It was we who did the dispossessing", he said. "We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases and the alcohol." He went on: "We committed the murders. Wetook the children from their mothers.We practiseddiscriminationand exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice. And our failure to imagine that these things could be done to us ".[5]
The speech became known as the "Redfern speech", and is now regarded by many as one of the greatest Australian speeches.[6][1][5]
Don Watson,then Keating's principal speechwriter, later claimed authorship of the speech, although Keating has disputed this. Watson wrote about the creation of the speech in his 2002 memoir,Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM.[7][1][8]
Legacy
editKeating's speech has been described as "a defining moment in the nation's reconciliation with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people", being the first ever public acknowledgement by theCommonwealth Governmentof the dispossession of the country's First Nations peoples.[2]
In 2007,ABC Radio Nationallisteners voted the speech as their third most unforgettable speech, behindMartin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 speech "I Have a Dream"(number one) andJesus'Sermon on the Mount(number two).[9]
Keating's speech was the first stepping stone for a laterLaborPrime Minister,Kevin Rudd,to offer aformal apology to Indigenous Australiansfor past government practices and policies, delivered inCanberrain February 2008.[2]
The Redfern Address was added to theNational Film and Sound Archive'sSounds of Australiaregistry in 2010.[2]
In 2019, the Australian electronic musicianPaul Macsampled the speech in the track "Redfern Address (In Memory of Vision)" on his albumMesmerism.[10][11]
Sol Bellearsaid in 2017 that he believed the speech "would have to be one of the most brilliant speeches ever, in Australia, if not thesouthern hemisphere."On the 30th anniversary of the speech in 2022,The Guardianreleased interviews withStan Grant,Larissa Behrendtand other Indigenous public and media figures who witnessed the speech on its lasting impact.[12]
Redfern Statement
editReferencing Keating's Redfern Speech, a policy statement from a large group of Indigenous bodies was issued on 9 June 2016, in the run-up to the2016 Australian election,was dubbed the Redfern Statement. It represented growing calls for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander autonomy, and policy informed bygrassrootsorganisations.[13]The manifesto was authored by 18 organisations, including theLowitja Instituteand theHealing Foundation.It was supported by theClose the Gapcommittee,Amnesty International Australia,theAustralian Medical Association,theLaw Council of Australia,Reconciliation Australia,Save the Children Australia,theFred Hollows Foundation,ANTaRand many other large and smaller organisations.[14]The group called for the creation of a new dedicated department to deliver programs for Indigenous advancement.[13]
The Redfern Statement united leading members of theNational Congress of Australia’s First Peoplesfrom across key sectors, and had helped to grow an alliance of supporters.[15]In September 2016, coinciding with the start of the 45thAustralian Parliament,a gathering of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, including all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander MPs and Senators, outsideParliament House, Canberra,highlighted the importance of supporting the Redfern Statement.[16]On 14 February 2017, DrJackie Huggins,who chairs theClose the Gapcampaign, gave the statement to Prime MinisterMalcolm Turnbull,Opposition LeaderBill Shorten,and the leader of theAustralian Greens,Richard Di Natale,ahead of the 9thClosing the GapReport to Parliament.[17][18]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^abcClark, Tom (8 December 2013)."Keating's Redfern speech is still worth fighting over".The Conversation.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^abcdeGilchrist, Catie (24 July 2020)."Redfern Park".The Dictionary of Sydney.Dictionary of Sydney Trust.Retrieved24 July2020.
Text is available under aAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)licence.
- ^UN General Assembly."International Year for the World's Indigenous People, 1993: resolution / adopted by the General Assembly 14 December 1992, A/RES/47/75".Refworld.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^"The International Year for the World's Indigenous People".Center for International Earth Science Information Network.25 November 1992.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^ab"Paul Keating's Redfern speech still powerful after 25 years".SBS News.9 December 2017.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^Clark, Tom (5 December 2013)."Paul Keating's Redfern Park speech and its rhetorical legacy".Overland Literary Journal(213).Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^Simons, Margaret (15 March 2003)."Unaccustomed as I am..."The Sydney Morning Herald.Retrieved5 March2012.
- ^Keating, Paul (25 August 2010)."On that historic day in Redfern, the words I spoke were mine".The Sydney Morning Herald.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^"Unforgettable Speeches".ABC Radio National.Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 25 January 2007.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^Nimmo, Julie (3 May 2019)."'The most important speech in Australian politics': musician Paul Mac gives new life to Keating's Redfern Address ".NITV.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^Mac, Paul."Paul Mac - 'Redfern Address' (Official Video)".YouTube.Archivedfrom the original on 13 December 2021.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^"'Keating told the truth': Stan Grant, Larissa Behrendt and others remember the Redfern speech 30 years on ".The Guardian.9 December 2022.ISSN0261-3077.Retrieved18 January2024.
- ^abDennett, Harley (10 June 2016)."Redfern Statement calls for indigenous leaders in an indigenous department".The Mandarin.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples; et al. (9 June 2016)."2The Redfern Statement [Election 2016: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations Unite"(PDF).Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^"Redfern Statement remains central focus for First Peoples representatives".ConnectWeb.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^Babington, Brian (7 September 2016)."Stark reminder why implementing the Redfern Statement matter".Families Australia.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^"Indigenous leaders deliver Redfern Statement to PM".Australian Human Rights Commission.14 February 2017.Retrieved24 July2020.
- ^"Close the Gap - Progress & Priorities report 2017".Australian Human Rights Commission.Retrieved24 July2020.
External links
edit
- "SPEECH BY THE HON PRIME MINISTER, P J KEATING MP, AUSTRALIAN LAUNCH OF THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR FOR THE WORLD'S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, REDFERN, 10 DECEMBER 1992"(PDF).Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
- "Transcript: Redfern Speech (Year for the World's Indigenous People) – Delivered in Redfern Park by Prime Minister Paul Keating, 10 December 1992"(PDF).ANTaR.
- Audio of speechreleased byABConSoundCloudunder aCreative Commons NonCommercial licence.
- Prime Minister Paul Keating - Launch of International Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples, 1993onYouTube(Delivered 10 December 1992)
- Keating Speech: The Redfern Address (1992).Australian Screen.National Registry of Recorded Sound.