Paul Keating Redfern Speech Essay

A composer may question socially ingrained values and suggest their own principles in order to provide an idealistic, universal memorandum for the future. Denis Glover in his article “Redfern speech flatters writer as well as orator” The Australian 10/8/2012 asserts that Paul Keating deserves enormous credit for his political courage. This courage was evident in the manner in which he convey his position on the divisive issue. In his 1992 ‘Redfern Speech’, Paul Keating portrayed Australia’s complex ‘contemporary identity’ as something that ‘cannot be separated from Aboriginal Australia.’ This speech captured the attention of the early 1990s, an era characterised by fierce debate over truth, history and Aboriginal rights in the wake of the Mabo

trial. It also forever changed the debate on reconciliation by developing a new aged perspective on this ever important dark-past which consumed hearts and minds, splitting  the Australian community. This unifying characteristic of Keating’s speech reinforced the inclusive pronouns of ‘us’ (the non-aboriginal people) to recognise the legacy of Aboriginal dispossession left by European settlers, re-evaluate “our” national identity so “we” can embrace Aboriginal Australians as valued members of society.

To do this, Keating advocates the importance of acknowledging past events in order to re-build a future. He is using the past as a platform to ensure ALL Australians have to opportunity to prosper into the future. Keating acknowledged responsibility for the high incidence of violent crime, alcoholism and chronic drug use in Redfern when he referred to the ‘devastation and demoralisation’ evident within communities like Redfern as a ‘plight’ that ‘affects us all’. The combination of emotive and inclusive language effectively conveys his argument that our humanity and national identity will remain tarnished as long as Aboriginal Australians live in the metaphorical ‘shadows’. His rhetoric use of inclusive  repetition – ‘We took the traditional lands… We brought the diseases…We committed the murders… We took the children’ – conveys an assertive tone which suggests that our national identity is burdened by past atrocities which ‘degraded all of

us’. He reminds his audience that Aboriginal Australians have ‘shaped our identity’ by listing their significant contributions; ‘pastoral and agricultural…frontier and exploration…the wars…sport… literature and art and music.’ His final words offer cautious optimism while maintaining that ‘we’ still ‘owe the indigenous Australians’ and have a lot to learn from them – ‘We are beginning to recognise…we are learning… we are beginning to see’. His use of the present continuous tense conveys the sense that our national identity and collective self-knowledge is still a work in progress