Analysis Of 'The Australian Dream, And Pauline Hanson'sMaiden Speech'

Celebrating the launch of the "International of the World's Indigenous People" in 1992, Keating addresses the "White-Australians" failure in recognising the injustices embedded within Australia's colonial past. Keating highlights the plight of Indigenous Australians through the use of highly evocative alliteration "devastation and demoralisation" to expose White-Australian's "failure". This reflects his condemnation of the "Great Australia Silence" proposed by Professor Stanner 1968, underpinning the prevailing social inequity that has been subdued and unrecognised by many Australians, compelling his intended and the future audience to revalue their preconceived understanding of Australia's colonial past. Furthermore, He skilfully employs logos to reinforce his argument in "the Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody showed… past lives on inequality, racism and injustice", emphasising the social disadvantage faced by the ATSI community. Through the use of cumulative listing, "inequality, racism and injustice", Keating accentuates the importance of learning and recognising our past injustice to catalyse social progression towards reconciliation, constructing a sense of pathos that emotionally prompts the audience to sympathise with Aboriginal

‘The Sapphires’ by Wayne Blair was the trigger that led my research into the effects of the Stolen Generation on Aboriginals in Australia. This film is about an Aboriginal singing group who want to make a name for themselves, but find it difficult because of the racism against them. This film also tells the stories of their cousin Kay, who was a half-caste and was stolen from her Aboriginal family at a young age to be taught the ways of white people, and forget her culture. This film made me realise that I am lucky to live in a country where racism of such an extent in which children are stolen from their indigenous families, isn’t part of our history, and has not affected me personally. From my research, I have found six main sources that have helped me to understand how large this problem was and continues to be. My sources: ‘The Sapphires’ by Wayne Blair; a film about a group of Aboriginal singers who are affected by racism which is based on a real life singing group; ‘The Sorry Speech’, by Kevin Rudd who was the Prime Minister of Australia in 2008 who explains the damage and apologises for the way that the actions of past governments tore apart the lives of their indigenous people. Then there is ‘Blind Eye,’ the documentary in which people who were stolen are interviewed and tell their stories. The film, ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ this tells the story of two girls who were stolen and gives us insight into how brutally that they were treated after being ripped apart from

Stan Grant’s speech ‘Racism and the Australian Dream’ (2015) effectively reminds the Australian population of the racism and harsh inequalities indigenous Australians have faced in the past and still face today. In reminding us of this reality, Grant engages us to discover issues of civic participation in Aboriginal people and in doing so perpetuates a need for social change. More?

A very noteworthy quote in Grant’s speech is easily noticed. He constantly uses repetition to highlight the ideology of “The Australian Dream”, in fact Stan Grant repeats this phrase 11 times throughout his speech. Instead of stating it after speaking of freedom, youth, wealth and joy he instead constantly repeats this expression again and again after describing the oppression, fear of humiliation and hurt of dispossession, injustice suffering and survival. Grant utilises these keywords to draw focus on the lies told by Australians told to themselves everyday. Grant speaks of the Australian anthem and to draw attention on the mockery in many verses of it and appeal to the patriotism of Australian Citizens. He constantly quotes verses from our

Thus through Keating’s skillful manipulation of Aristotle’s pathos and ethos, he is able to vehemently communicate with us his solution to the maltreatment of Aboriginals by engaging the viewers to comply with his need for reconciliation. Moreover, the use of Churchill’s extravagance of language in the emotive words “inequality, racism and injustice,” further incites us to a call to action; putting a halt to these grievances. The negative connotations of the alliteration of “the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all” further reiterates his argument of taking ownership of the past and thus challenging the status quo to learn another discourse on the controversial subject of reconciliation. Moreover, Keating’s employment of the anaphora of “imagine if” allows for Monroe’s visualisation of the

On February 13th, 2008, indigenous and aboriginal people across all of Australia were deeply moved and in tears; The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, had finally apologised the Stolen Generations in his ‘sorry’ speech. The Apology was an important step towards rebuilding respectful and new relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, and to honour and apologize to stolen generations. Many Australians believe that respectful relationships are essential if we are to solve persistent problems. But poll results can sometimes show otherwise. We will see how the media saw the ‘sorry’ apology, how aboriginal and non- indigenous people felt and how they received the apology and also check out poll results. We will

Thus, the creation of the One Nation Party in 1997 clearly demonstrated the continual existence of a White Australia notion. It would seem that Hanson has always had a negative stance toward immigration, especially against ‘Asians’. This is evident in her maiden speech whereby she said “we are in danger of being swamped by Asians … They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate … I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country. Hanson also believed her views to be that of a typical Australians.” (Jupp 2002, p.130) This gross generalisation of Asians by Hanson along with One Nation winning a surprising amount of seats in parliament, only further reinforces the notion of White Australia’s continual existence in modern day Australian society. The year

Speeches are an iconic and widely used means of expression for our political leaders, particularly when discussing issues of importance such as Indigenous Australia. Paul Keating’s ‘Redfern Speech’ and Kevin Rudd’s ‘Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples’ are the two political speeches which I will be analysing in this paper.

The recent comments made by former Indigenous Australian boxer Anthony Mundine and soprano performer Deborah Cheetham, have sparked a controversial debate regarding the place of “Advance Australia Fair” in modern day Australia. At the centre of this disagreement, there lies a much more serious issue concerning Indigenous Australians and the timing in which the national anthem was introduced in regards to the Stolen Generation. Is it time to change, to mend and assist with reconciliation?

(Reconciliation Australia, n.d) Major Australian events such as colonisation, the stolen generation, and past policies have caused marginalisation and oppression in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. (Mallard, 2016) Throughout history negative stereotypes have been cast upon Indigenous Australians, with myths of alcoholism and sexual abuse and domestic violence often linked to Indigenous Australians, however these myths are statistically incorrect and are not a true representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. (Reconciliation Australia, n.d) For Australia to close the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, all Australians must surrender previous beliefs and attitudes they hold of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. (Sarra,

One of the most contentious discourses to ever exist in the Australian news media is that which concerns asylum seekers. Discourse is defined as an organisation of socially constructed knowledge about an aspect of reality (Foucault 1977; Hall 1997; van Leeuwen 2005), and racism is a system of oppression targeting members of ethnic groups who share bodily phenotypes such as skin pigmentation (Erikson 2010, Luke and Carrington 2000, Scholte 2000). This essay will firstly argue that Australia’s dominant discourse portrays asylum seekers in a racist manner. Then, it will determine this discourse to be largely constructed by the news media: the mass communication channels (such as newspapers, television, and the Internet) that report recent events

In a speech given at the United Nations 2013 International Women’s Day Panel, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick stated that Australia has seen ‘significant progress in eliminating gender-based discrimination but there is still a long way to go before we reach full gender equality’ (Broderick, 2013). A prominent country of the developed world, Australia offers its multicultural nation a host of modern conveniences and luxuries from education and employment to healthcare and housing. However, although this may be the case for white males in contemporary Australian society, there are a number of minority groups

The media message which has been chosen is Kevin Rudd’s ‘ Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples’ speech. On Wednesday the 12th of February 2008, Australia’s prime minister, at the time, delivered an official apology to the Indigenous peoples who were taken from families and communities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in Australia. In this speech, Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister is giving a painstaking apology to the stolen generations and the aboriginals for their sorrow, pain and loss. After many years of suffering Rudd brings up this sensitive topic and is giving a speech with functions and effects which makes the intention of the speech reach the audience on a passionate way with strong feelings.

There has been considerable discourse associated with the Australian public’s reticence in relation to their failure to acknowledge that this is a critical social justice issue. A number of polls have reflected that the general consensus is that the Australian public is fearful of an influx of asylum seekers and this is fear is correlated to a growth in concern associated with terrorist related global activities. In addition to this New York Times (2015) claims that the ongoing positioning of Islam as a threat by the media perpetuates the subordination of minority groups. Support of this ideology is evident in the rise of conservative right wing parties such as the One Nation party. In fact, according to the The Sydney Morning Herald (2016) One Nation has ‘quadrupled’ its support since 2016 when the preference deal was signed with the Liberal. In addition to this, the rise in attendance numbers at Reclaim Australia rallies with individuals carrying signs such as “ISIS refugees are not welcome” and “Australia should stop the Invasion” testifies to the level of contention some sectors of the Australian public have towards asylum

Reconciliation is an act of restoration, to unite, unify and up bring a stronger and more functional relationship between the Australian and Aboriginal community. To achieve complete reconciliation attempts from films, poetry, novels and other limitless elements, have been constructed to reflect the attitudes and values of the context in which are designed to accomplish this virtuous goal. Evidently, they demonstrate to be positively effective, through the countless response of the wider community. A powerful illustration that embodies a similar attitude, value and belief is Kerry Fletcher’s, Sorry Song. Written during the early years of indigenous rights, comes arguably one of the most iconic messages, of the Stolen Generation. Through purposefully using repetition and personification in each verse, Fletcher is without doubt singing in determination to expose the ugly history; federal governments effortlessly try to keep buried. Moreover, these techniques become equally more magnificent, when its context is directed and communicated through a non-aboriginal woman, despite the political arrogance at the time. However, In the light of what today symbolises, let us explore the hidden meaning behind Fletchers motivation, which helped mole the true significance of NAIDOC Day.