Redfern Park Speech

The Redfern Park Speech was made on 10 December 1992 by Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating at Redfern Park in Redfern, New South Wales. The speech dealt with the challenges faced by Indigenous Australians.

Don Watson, then Keating's principal speechwriter, has claimed authorship of the speech, although Keating has disputed this.[1][2] Delivered to a crowd of predominantly indigenous people, it became known as the "Redfern Speech". Although it was not given a great deal of media attention at the time, it is now regarded by many as one of the greatest Australian speeches. Paul 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: "We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice."

Legacy

In 2007, ABC Radio National listeners voted the speech as their third most "unforgettable speech" behind Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech (number one) and Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (number two). [3]

In 2008, parts of the speech were sampled for use in a track by GetUp![4]

References

  1. ↑ Margaret Simons, "Unaccustomed as I am ... ", Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 2003. Retrieved 5 March 2012.
  2. ↑ Paul Keating, "All mine, my dear Watson", Sydney Morning Herald, 26 August 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2013
  3. ↑ Unforgettable Speeches (ABC Radio National), ABC Radio National
  4. ↑ "DIG Radio - PM's Apology Sampled On Paul Kelly Song". Abc.net.au. Retrieved 2010-07-09.

See also

  • Text of speech
  • Sound recording of the speech at the National Archives of Australia
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Social Justice Reports 1994-2009 and Native Title Reports 1994-2009 for more information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs
  • Watch a recording of the Redfern Address on australianscreen online
  • The Redfern Address was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2010
  • Catie Gilchrist (2015). "Redfern Park". Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 29 September 2015. [CC-By-SA]


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