GWSC YEAR 10 ENGLISH

Persuasion in Australian
Democracy
This Booklet belongs to

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The Texts
*The following speeches are taken from specific moments in the evolution of Australian
democracy, and represent speakers with strong views on the issues. They have been
organised under broad topics, but the topics may well have different issues within them.

Analysis
For each speech (note: some are written texts), complete the following analysis tasks. They
will give you an understanding of what is going on in terms of persuasion, so that you can
then write an analytical essay. Be aware that the analysis questions are not an end in
themselves, and your essay writing will ultimately consist of a more complex investigation
than the shopping list of persuasive devices that this activity will produce.

Context
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Research the speakers political and cultural background.

Who is the audience? How do you know this from the speech itself?
What does the speaker believe the audience needs?
Why is the speaker making the speech (i.e. what does the speaker hope to accomplish)?
Is there a specific event that has taken place which has inspired or motivated the speaker to
make this speech? Alternatively, is there a prevailing situation which has acted as
motivation?

Struct ure
The typical persuasive structure consists of three stages: Awareness; Consequences;
Solution. In the Awareness stage the speaker makes the audience aware of what is
happening. In the Consequences stage the speaker alerts the audience to what is at stake,
what may happen if nothing is done. In the Solution stage, the speaker offers a proposal that
will allegedly avoid the consequences, and remedy the situation.
6. Does the speech fit into this structure? If so, note the points where each stage commences.
If not, determine what the structure is.
7. Tone is often closely aligned to structure, and the emotions that the speaker would be
projecting in the speech would indicate that tone. Based on the transcript, try to determine
what emotion the speaker would be using in each stage. Does the speaker use more than
one tone per stage?

Strategies
A speaker can use a number of strategies to sway an audience. Tone, already discussed, is
one such strategy, but there are many more. Appeals to various values that the audience
may hold is one such other strategy, as are various rhetorical ploys, and a whole collection
of persuasive tricks.
8. Identify at least one value that the audience would be expected to hold, and that the speaker
is playing upon.
9. Rhetoric is the craft of speaking, and it can appear in everything from the pauses used to
pace the speech, through to the use of so-called rhetorical questions. Identify at least one
rhetorical ploy, and consider its intended impact.
10. Drawing upon your knowledge of persuasive tricks (e.g. black and white fallacy, bandwagon,
demonising, and so on), identify at least one such trick and consider its intended impact
upon the audience.
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Indigenous Australians
Relations between Indigenous and Non-indigenous Australians have been problematic for
the entirety of European settlement, with some periods of our history considerably worse
than others. In the decades since the 1960s reforms have taken place, but there is still a
considerable amount of ill feeling and inequity that exists between the two groups.

Robert Menli Lyon - Speech at a public meeting in Guildford, WA, June 1833
You are the aggressors..They did not go to the British isles to make war upon you; but
you came from the British isles to make war upon them. You are the invaders of their country
ye destroy the natural productions of the soil on which they live ye devour their fish and
their game and ye drive them from the abodes of their ancestors
They may stand to be slaughtered; but they must not throw a spear in their own defence, or
attempt to bring their enemies to a sense of justice by the only means in their power that of
returning like for like.
If they do if they dare to be guilty of an act which in other nations would be eulogised as
the noblest of a patriots deeds they are outlawed; a reward is set upon their heads; and
they are ordered to be shot, as if they were so many mad dogs!
If ye have any feelings of compunction, before the die be cast, let the Aboriginal inhabitants
of Australia live. Ye have taken from them all they had on earth.
Be content with this, and do not add to the crime of plundering them that of taking their
lives.

Governor George Gawler - Address to Aboriginal inhabitants of South

Australia, sometime in the period of his governance, 1838 - 1841
Black men,
We wish to make you happy. But you cannot be happy unless you imitate good white men.
Build huts, wear clothes, work and be useful. Above all you cannot be happy unless you love
God who made heaven and earth and men and all things.
Love white men. Love other tribes of black men. Do not quarrel together. Tell other tribes to
love white men, and to build good huts and wear clothes. Learn to speak English. If any
white men injure you now, tell the Protector and he will do you justice.

A.O. Neville - WA Chief Protector of Aborigines, compilation of extracts from

various speeches delivered in the 1930s
We know that there has been wanton and unwarranted destruction of black life for which our
race is responsible, but if we work on right lines now it may be contended in days to come
that the white man eventually saved the black man from entire extinction.
The quadroon and octoroon are scarcely distinguishable from the white. Many are
handsome, even beautiful, gentle-mannered, soft-voiced girls, speaking perfectly
enunciated, if somewhat abbreviated English. Is there to be a colour bar?
How can we keep them apart from the community? Our own population is not increasing at
such a rapid rate as to lead us to expect that there will be a great many more white people in
that area [the south-west of Western Australia] 25 years hence than there are at present.
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The aborigines have inter-married with our people. I know of some 80 white men who are
married to native women, with whom they are living happy, contented lives, so I see no
objection to the ultimate absorption into our own race of the whole of the existing Australian
native race. In order to do this we must guard the health of the natives in every possible way
so they may be, physically, as fit as possible.
The children must be trained as we would train our own children. The stigma at present
attaching to half-castes must be banished. In Western Australia half-caste boys and men
take part in football, cricket and other games on a footing equal to that of their white
clubmates, but are excluded from the social life of the community. They feel this deeply, as
do their white companions in sport. This state of affairs will have to disappear.

Captain Major - The Gurindji Strike at Wave Hill, August 1966

I bin thinkin longa time about my people not having proper money or proper conditions. I
bin thinkin we got no one to help us, no one behind us. Then I bin hear about them white
fellas talkin in that Court somewhere about equal wages.
When I first started I was working at Wave Hill. I was only a kid then. Wave Hill is my
country. I am a proper Gurindji man.
All around the Territory I bin working more than thirty year. And I bin thinking: white fella
dont treat native people proper, dont give him proper wages or nothing. He never teach you
to read, only to count, to keep tally when the cattle go in the yard
Mesel I want to see my people get proper equal money, then I will go back to Wave Hill, and
live in my own country with the Gurindji tribe.

Burnum Burnum - Declaration of Possession, 26 January 1988 (Australias

Bicentenary of European Settlement)
I, Burnum Burnum, a noble man of ancient Australia, do hereby take possession of England
on behalf of the Aboriginal Crown of Australia.
In so doing we wish no harm to you natives, but assure you that we are here to bring you
good manners, refinement and the opportunity to make a fresh start.
At the end of two hundred years, we will make a Treaty to signify occupation by peaceful
means and not by conquest.
For the more intelligent we bring the complex language of the Pitjantjatjara, teach you how to
have a spiritual relationship with the Earth and show you how to get bush tucker.
We do not intend to souvenir, pickle and preserve the heads of 2000 of your people, nor to
publicly display the skeletal remains of your Royal Highness, as was done to our Queen
Truganini for 80 years. Neither do we intend to poison your water holes, lace your bread with
strychnine or introduce you to highly toxic drugs.
We pledge not to sterilise your young women.
Finally, we give an absolute undertaking that you shall not be placed onto the mentality of
government handouts for the next five generations but you will enjoy the full benefits of
Aboriginal equality.
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PM Paul Keating - The Redfern Speech (Redfern, NSW, 10th December 1992)
Ladies and gentlemen I am very pleased to be here today at the launch of Australia's
celebration of the 1993 International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
It will be a year of great significance for Australia.
It comes at a time when we have committed ourselves to succeeding in the test which so far
we have always failed.
Because, in truth, we cannot confidently say that we have succeeded as we would like to
have succeeded if we have not managed to extend opportunity and care, dignity and hope to
the indigenous people of Australia - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people.
This is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to say to
ourselves and the rest of the world that Australia is a first rate social democracy, that we are
what we should be - truly the land of the fair go and the better chance.
There is no more basic test of how seriously we mean these things.
It is a test of our self-knowledge.
Of how well we know the land we live in. How well we know our history.
How well we recognise the fact that, complex as our contemporary identity is, it cannot be
separated from Aboriginal Australia.
How well we know what Aboriginal Australians know about Australia.
Redfern is a good place to contemplate these things.
Just a mile or two from the place where the first European settlers landed, in too many ways
it tells us that their failure to bring much more than devastation and demoralisation to
Aboriginal Australia continues to be our failure.
More I think than most Australians recognise, the plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us
all.
In Redfern it might be tempting to think that the reality Aboriginal Australians face is
somehow contained here, and that the rest of us are insulated from it.
But of course, while all the dilemmas may exist here, they are far from contained.
We know the same dilemmas and more are faced all over Australia. That is perhaps the
point of this Year of the World's Indigenous People: to bring the dispossessed out of the
shadows, to recognise that they are part of us, and that we cannot give indigenous
Australians up without giving up many of our own most deeply held values, much of our own
identity - and our own humanity.
Nowhere in the world, I would venture, is the message more stark than it is in Australia.
We simply cannot sweep injustice aside. Even if our own conscience allowed us to, I am
sure, that in due course, the world and the people of our region would not.
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There should be no mistake about this - our success in resolving these issues will have a
significant bearing on our standing in the world.
However intractable the problems seem, we cannot resign ourselves to failure - any more
than we can hide behind the contemporary version of Social Darwinism which says that to
reach back for the poor and dispossessed is to risk being dragged down.
That seems to me not only morally indefensible, but bad history.
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.
And, as I say, the starting point might be to recognise that the problem starts with us nonAboriginal Australians.
It begins, I think, with that 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 diseases. 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.
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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.
For all this, I do not believe that the Report should fill us with guilt.
Down the years, there has been no shortage of guilt, but it has not produced the responses
we need.
Guilt is not a very constructive emotion.
I think what we need to do is open our hearts a bit.
All of us.
Perhaps when we recognise what we have in common we will see the things which must be
done - the practical things.
There is something of this in the creation of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.
The Council's mission is to forge a new partnership built on justice and equity and an
appreciation of the heritage of Australia's indigenous people.
In the abstract those terms are meaningless.
We have to give meaning to "justice" and "equity" - and, as I have said several times this
year, we will only give them meaning when we commit ourselves to achieving concrete
results.
If we improve the living conditions in one town, they will improve in another. And another.
If we raise the standard of health by twenty per cent one year, it will be raised more the next.
If we open one door others will follow.
When we see improvement, when we see more dignity, more confidence, more happiness we will know we are going to win.
We need these practical building blocks of change.
The Mabo Judgement should be seen as one of these.
By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the
settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the basis for
justice.
It will be much easier to work from that basis than has ever been the case in the past.
For that reason alone we should ignore the isolated outbreaks of hysteria and hostility of the
past few months.

Mabo is an historic decision - we can make it an historic turning point, the basis of a new
relationship between indigenous and non-Aboriginal Australians.
The message should be that there is nothing to fear or to lose in the recognition of historical
truth, or the extension of social justice, or the deepening of Australian social democracy to
include indigenous Australians.
There is everything to gain.
Even the unhappy past speaks for this.
Where Aboriginal Australians have been included in the life of Australia they have made
remarkable contributions.
Economic contributions, particularly in the pastoral and agricultural industry.
They are there in the frontier and exploration history of Australia.
They are there in the wars.
In sport to an extraordinary degree.
In literature and art and music.
In all these things they have shaped our knowledge of this continent and of ourselves. They
have shaped our identity.
They are there in the Australian legend.
We should never forget - they have helped build this nation.
And if we have a sense of justice, as well as common sense, we will forge a new
partnership.
As I said, it might help us if we non-Aboriginal Australians imagined ourselves dispossessed
of land we had lived on for fifty thousand years - and then imagined ourselves told that it had
never been ours.
Imagine if ours was the oldest culture in the world and we were told that it was worthless.
Imagine if we had resisted this settlement, suffered and died in the defence of our land, and
then were told in history books that we had given up without a fight.
Imagine if non-Aboriginal Australians had served their country in peace and war and were
then ignored in history books.
Imagine if our feats on sporting fields had inspired admiration and patriotism and yet did
nothing to diminish prejudice.
Imagine if our spiritual life was denied and ridiculed.
Imagine if we had suffered the injustice and then were blamed for it.
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It seems to me that if we can imagine the injustice we can imagine its opposite.
And we can have justice.
I say that for two reasons:
I say it because I believe that the great things about Australian social democracy reflect a
fundamental belief in justice.
And I say it because in so many other areas we have proved our capacity over the years to
go on extending the realms of participation, opportunity and care.
Just as Australians living in the relatively narrow and insular Australia of the 1960s imagined
a culturally diverse, worldly and open Australia, and in a generation turned the idea into
reality, so we can turn the goals of reconciliation into reality.
There are very good signs that the process has begun.
The creation of the Reconciliation Council is evidence itself.
The establishment of the ATSIC - the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission - is
also evidence.
The Council is the product of imagination and good will.
ATSIC emerges from the vision of indigenous self-determination and self management.
The vision has already become the reality of almost 800 elected Aboriginal Regional
Councillors and Commissioners determining priorities and developing their own programs.
All over Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are taking charge of
their own lives.
And assistance with the problems which chronically beset them is at last being made
available in ways developed by the communities themselves.
If these things offer hope, so does the fact that this generation of Australians is better
informed about Aboriginal culture and achievement, and about the injustice that has been
done, than any generation before.
We are beginning to more generally appreciate the depth and the diversity of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander cultures.
From their music and art and dance we are beginning to recognise how much richer our
national life and identity will be for the participation of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.
We are beginning to learn what the indigenous people have known for many thousands of
years - how to live with our physical environment.
Ever so gradually we are learning how to see Australia through Aboriginal eyes, beginning to
recognise the wisdom contained in their epic story.
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I think we are beginning to see how much we owe the indigenous Australians and how much
we have lost by living so apart.
I said we non-indigenous Australians should try to imagine the Aboriginal view.
It can't be too hard. Someone imagined this event today, and it is now a marvellous reality
and a great reason for hope.
There is one thing today we cannot imagine.
We cannot imagine that the descendants of people whose genius and resilience maintained
a culture here through fifty thousand years or more, through cataclysmic changes to the
climate and environment, and who then survived two centuries of dispossession and abuse,
will be denied their place in the modern Australian nation.
We cannot imagine that.
We cannot imagine that we will fail.
And with the spirit that is here today I am confident that we won't.
I am confident that we will succeed in this decade.
Thank you

PM Kevin Rudd - Apology to Australias Indigenous People (Canberra, ACT,

13th February 2008)
Mr Speaker, I move:
That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in
human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations - this
blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the
wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that
have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from
their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their
families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families
and communities, we say sorry.
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And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture,
we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit
in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent
can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that
embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never
happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and nonIndigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational
achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old
approaches have failed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal
opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great
country, Australia.

Sam Watson - Aboriginal Activist speaking on the 40th Anniversary of the

Aboriginal Tent Embassy (14th January 2012)
The Aboriginal Tent Embassy has always been acknowledged as the most successful and
significant protest in the entire history of our Aboriginal struggle. We have defended it
through thick and thin.
After the embassy was established on January 26, 1972, the Liberal government tried to
destroy it. When squads of police removed the tents in July that year, the people mobilised
to put them back.
On the 40th anniversary this year, it is time for us to come together as a network of
Aboriginal nations, to stand together with our supporters and salute the achievements of the
magnificent men and women who have since passed on.
It will be an emotional time, to acknowledge the bonds formed on the Old Parliament lawns
over the years of revolutionary struggle. I was invited to join the embassy in the first week of
February 1972, as a co-founder of the Black Panther Party of Australia.
The Aboriginal struggle at that time was against the then McMahon government of the day,
to demand uniform land rights across the nation. We needed to ramp up the campaign for
justice and higher living standards for Aboriginal people.

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The tent embassy became a national focus, with hundreds of tourists visiting every day. We
handed out thousands of leaflets, raising international awareness of the plight of Aboriginal
people in Australia.
The attempt to forcibly close down the embassy in July 1972 merely reignited the campaign
to defend it. I was there from February to July that year, and remember and honour the
brothers and sisters who fought to keep the embassy going.
We have to come together again as a national movement, and put into place a genuine
national Aboriginal leadership team. We also need to welcome a new generation of young
Aboriginal activists and encourage them to move forward with the next level of struggle.
Michael Anderson is preparing to launch a legal campaign to overturn the lie of peaceful
British colonial settlement of Australia. This legal action will establish beyond dispute that
Aboriginal people never ceded our sovereign rights over this land.
This legal challenge will be taken to the international community. We need to seek a binding
treaty to fully recognise our rights.
This will recognise our demands for comprehensive land rights and an end to mining on our
land.
We also stand in solidarity with all the families who have suffered over the years from deaths
in custody arising from state violence. Police and prison officers who commit these crimes
must be identified, charged and sentenced.
We need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to reveal the facts behind these criminal
actions.
In addition, the Northern Territory intervention must cease, and local communities be given
the rights and the funding to properly manage their own affairs.
These are among the key aims of our movement as we mark this historic 40th anniversary of
the Aboriginal Tent Embassy this month.

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Womens Rights
Women have been treated in marked inequality with men for the most part of human history.
The main focus of the womens rights movement over the past 150 years has been upon
political representation and the right to vote (suffrage), but equality of pay and work
conditions have also been significant parts of this struggle.
Note that all but PM Gillards speech were in fact published in printed form rather than
delivered as speeches.

The Vagabond, male columnist in The Argus (newspaper), Melbourne, 1882.

Of what use is the eight hours law when girls are compelled to work so long overtime in
their own homes to eke out a living?
Of what use is a protective duty if the only result is to enrich the few manufacturers and keep
on the ragged edge of existence the hundreds they employ?
If the duty is not enough, if manufacturers here are forced to compete on unfavourable terms
with the work turned out by the starving mill hands of England, increase it by all means. Let
us men pay a little more for our clothing, that these our poor struggling sisters may earn their
bread in ease and comfort and maintain their honour, instead of, as now, being ground down
or driven on the streets.
I have loved Australia because, of all places in the world, the working men seem the best
off..But I have thought for a long time that the condition of many working women was not
by any means so satisfactory

Mary Lee - Suffragette, SA, 1889

in our own Parliament the Dog Licence Bill, the Sparrows Destruction Bill, a road or
railway, a bridge or well, anything and everything is allowed precedence of the Womens
Suffrage Bill and the womens petitions for suffrage.
The suffrage [right to vote] is the right of all women, just as it is the right of all men, and
although the immediate need may not be felt by the happy and prosperous- by women with
kind husbands and comfortable homes- we insist on it on behalf of the solitary, the hardpressed and the wronged; we insist on liberty that all may share the blessings of liberty.
Nineteenth century civilisation has accorded to women the same political status as to the
idiot and the criminal.
Let husbands, brothers, fathers be kept in mind that it is the duty of every free man to leave
his daughters as free as his sons.

Germaine Greer, in her book The Female Eunuch, 1970

Women represent the most oppressed class of life-contracted unpaid worker, for whom
slaves is not too melodramatic a description.

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They are the only true proletariat left, and they are by a tiny margin the majority of the
population, so whats stopping them?
The answer must be made, that their very oppression stands in the way of their combining to
form any kind of solid group which can challenge the masters.
But man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation
he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the
undermining of our civilisation and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is
time for the demolition to begin.
We need not challenge anyone to open battle, for the most effective method is simply to
withdraw our cooperation in building up a system which oppresses us, the valid withdrawal
of our labour.

PM Julia Gillard - The Misogyny Speech, Federal Parliament, House of

Representatives, 9th October 2012
Thank you very much Deputy Speaker and I rise to oppose the motion moved by the Leader
of the Opposition. And in so doing I say to the Leader of the Opposition I will not be lectured
about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. And the Government will not be lectured
about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever.
The Leader of the Opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are
misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well I hope the Leader of the Opposition has
got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what
misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of
Representatives, he needs a mirror. That's what he needs.
Let's go through the Opposition Leader's repulsive double standards, repulsive double
standards when it comes to misogyny and sexism. We are now supposed to take seriously
that the Leader of the Opposition is offended by Mr Slipper's text messages, when this is the
Leader of the Opposition who has said, and this was when he was a minister under the last
government not when he was a student, not when he was in high school when he was a
minister under the last government.
He has said, and I quote, in a discussion about women being under-represented in
institutions of power in Australia, the interviewer was a man called Stavros. The Leader of
the Opposition says If it's true, Stavros, that men have more power generally speaking than
women, is that a bad thing?
And then a discussion ensues, and another person says I want my daughter to have as
much opportunity as my son. To which the Leader of the Opposition says Yeah, I
completely agree, but what if men are by physiology or temperament, more adapted to
exercise authority or to issue command?
Then ensues another discussion about women's role in modern society, and the other
person participating in the discussion says I think it's very hard to deny that there is an
underrepresentation of women, to which the Leader of the Opposition says, But now,
there's an assumption that this is a bad thing.
This is the man from whom we're supposed to take lectures about sexism. And then of
course it goes on. I was very offended personally when the Leader of the Opposition, as
Minister of Health, said, and I quote, Abortion is the easy way out. I was very personally
offended by those comments. You said that in March 2004, I suggest you check the records.
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I was also very offended on behalf of the women of Australia when in the course of this
carbon pricing campaign, the Leader of the Opposition said What the housewives of
Australia need to understand as they do the ironing Thank you for that painting of
women's roles in modern Australia.
And then of course, I was offended too by the sexism, by the misogyny of the Leader of the
Opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as Prime Minister, If the Prime
Minister wants to, politically speaking, make an honest woman of herself, something that
would never have been said to any man sitting in this chair. I was offended when the Leader
of the Opposition went outside in the front of Parliament and stood next to a sign that said
Ditch the witch.
I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that described me as
a man's bitch. I was offended by those things. Misogyny, sexism, every day from this Leader
of the Opposition. Every day in every way, across the time the Leader of the Opposition has
sat in that chair and I've sat in this chair, that is all we have heard from him.
And now, the Leader of the Opposition wants to be taken seriously, apparently he's woken
up after this track record and all of these statements, and he's woken up and he's gone Oh
dear, there's this thing called sexism, oh my lords, there's this thing called misogyny. Now
who's one of them? Oh, the Speaker must be because that suits my political purpose.
Doesn't turn a hair about any of his past statements, doesn't walk into this Parliament and
apologise to the women of Australia. Doesn't walk into this Parliament and apologise to me
for the things that have come out of his mouth. But now seeks to use this as a battering ram
against someone else.
Well this kind of hypocrisy must not be tolerated, which is why this motion from the Leader of
the Opposition should not be taken seriously.
And then second, the Leader of the Opposition is always wonderful about walking into this
Parliament and giving me and others a lecture about what they should take responsibility for.
Always wonderful about that everything that I should take responsibility for, now apparently
including the text messages of the Member for Fisher. Always keen to say how others should
assume responsibility, particularly me.
Well can anybody remind me if the Leader of the Opposition has taken any responsibility for
the conduct of the Sydney Young Liberals and the attendance at this event of members of
his frontbench?
Has he taken any responsibility for the conduct of members of his political party and
members of his frontbench who apparently when the most vile things were being said about
my family, raised no voice of objection? Nobody walked out of the room; no-one walked up
to Mr Jones and said that this was not acceptable.
Instead of course, it was all viewed as good fun until it was run in a Sunday newspaper and
then the Leader of the Opposition and others started ducking for cover.
Big on lectures of responsibility, very light on accepting responsibility himself for the vile
conduct of members of his political party.
Third, Deputy Speaker, why the Leader of the Opposition should not be taken seriously on
this motion.
The Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition have come into this
place and have talked about the Member for Fisher. Well, let me remind the Opposition and
14

the Leader of the opposition party about their track record and association with the Member
for Fisher.
I remind them that the National Party preselected the Member for Fisher for the 1984
election, that the National Party preselected the Member for Fisher for the 1987 election, that
the Liberals preselected Mr Slipper for the 1993 election, then the 1996 election, then the
1998 election, then for the 2001 election, then for the 2004 election, then for the 2007
election and then for the 2010 election.
And across these elections, Mr Slipper enjoyed the personal support of the Leader of the
Opposition. I remind the Leader of the Opposition that on 28 September 2010, following the
last election campaign, when Mr Slipper was elected as Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the
Opposition at that stage said this, and I quote.
He referred to the Member for Maranoa, who was also elected to a position at the same
time, and then went on as follows: And the Member for Fisher will serve as a fine
complement to the Member for Scullin in the chair. I believe that the Parliament will be wellserved by the team which will occupy the chair in this chamber. I congratulate the Member
for Fisher, who has been a friend of mine for a very long time, who has served this
Parliament in many capacities with distinction.
The words of the Leader of the Opposition on record, about his personal friendship with Mr
[Slipper], and on record about his view about Mr Slipper's qualities and attributes to be the
Speaker.
No walking away from those words, they were the statement of the Leader of the Opposition
then. I remind the Leader of the Opposition, who now comes in here and speaks about
apparently his inability to work with or talk to Mr Slipper. I remind the Leader of the
Opposition he attended Mr Slipper's wedding.
Did he walk up to Mr Slipper in the middle of the service and say he was disgusted to be
there? Was that the attitude he took? No, he attended that wedding as a friend.
The Leader of the Opposition keen to lecture others about what they ought to know or did
know about Mr Slipper. Well with respect, I'd say to the Leader of the Opposition after a long
personal association including attending Mr Slipper's wedding, it would be interesting to
know whether the Leader of the Opposition was surprised by these text messages.
He's certainly in a position to speak more intimately about Mr Slipper than I am, and many
other people in this Parliament, given this long personal association.
Then of course the Leader of the Opposition comes into this place and says, and I quote,
Every day the Prime Minister stands in this Parliament to defend this Speaker will be
another day of shame for this Parliament, another day of shame for a government which
should already have died of shame.
Well can I indicate to the Leader of the Opposition the Government is not dying of shame,
my father did not die of shame, what the Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of is
his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it. Now about the text
messages that are on the public record or reported in the that's a direct quote from the
Leader of the Opposition so I suggest those groaning have a word with him.
On the conduct of Mr Slipper, and on the text messages that are in the public domain, I have
seen the press reports of those text messages. I am offended by their content. I am offended
by their content because I am always offended by sexism. I am offended by their content
because I am always offended by statements that are anti-women.
15

I am offended by those things in the same way that I have been offended by things that the
Leader of the Opposition has said, and no doubt will continue to say in the future. Because if
this today was an exhibition of his new feminine side, well I don't think we've got much to
look forward to in terms of changed conduct.
I am offended by those text messages. But I also believe, in terms of this Parliament making
a decision about the speakership, that this Parliament should recognise that there is a court
case in progress. That the judge has reserved his decision, that having waited for a number
of months for the legal matters surrounding Mr Slipper to come to a conclusion, that this
Parliament should see that conclusion.
I believe that is the appropriate path forward, and that people will then have an opportunity to
make up their minds with the fullest information available to them.
But whenever people make up their minds about those questions, what I won't stand for,
what I will never stand for is the Leader of the Opposition coming into this place and
peddling a double standard. Peddling a standard for Mr Slipper he would not set for himself.
Peddling a standard for Mr Slipper he has not set for other members of his frontbench.
Peddling a standard for Mr Slipper that has not been acquitted by the people who have been
sent out to say the vilest and most revolting things like his former Shadow Parliamentary
Secretary Senator Bernardi.
I will not ever see the Leader of the Opposition seek to impose his double standard on this
Parliament. Sexism should always be unacceptable. We should conduct ourselves as it
should always be unacceptable. The Leader of the Opposition says do something; well he
could do something himself if he wants to deal with sexism in this Parliament.
He could change his behaviour, he could apologise for all his past statements, he could
apologise for standing next to signs describing me as a witch and a bitch, terminology that is
now objected to by the frontbench of the Opposition.
He could change a standard himself if he sought to do so. But we will see none of that from
the Leader of the Opposition because on these questions he is incapable of change.
Capable of double standards, but incapable of change. His double standards should not rule
this Parliament.
Good sense, common sense, proper process is what should rule this Parliament. That's
what I believe is the path forward for this Parliament, not the kind of double standards and
political game-playing imposed by the Leader of the Opposition now looking at his watch
because apparently a woman's spoken too long.
I've had him yell at me to shut up in the past, but I will take the remaining seconds of my
speaking time to say to the Leader of the Opposition I think the best course for him is to
reflect on the standards he's exhibited in public life, on the responsibility he should take for
his public statements; on his close personal connection with Peter Slipper, on the hypocrisy
he has displayed in this House today.
And on that basis, because of the Leader of the Opposition's motivations, this Parliament
today should reject this motion and the Leader of the Opposition should think seriously about
the role of women in public life and in Australian society because we are entitled to a better
standard than this.

Multiculturalism
16

For most of the 23 decades of Australias history of European settlement, the nation was
protected against immigrants who were not either British or passably British looking. This
racist policy of exclusion was well supported by the Australian people until late in the 20th
Century, when the policy of multiculturalism was introduced by the Government. With the
introduction of this more open policy of accepting people from overseas who werent British
or British-looking, tensions occasionally arose.

Alfred Deakin - extract from Election speech (subsequently elected), delivered

at Ballarat, VIC, 29th October, 1903
In this theatre, two and-a half years ago, I laid special stress upon the white Australia policy
of the Government. (Applause) After that there was a fierce conflict in Parliament as to
whether the means we proposed to exclude the undesirable and colored aliens would
suffice. There were those who wished that on the face of the statute the prohibition against
them should appear in so many words.
We believed that we studied Australian interests, and also lessened the difficulties of the
mother country, if, instead of saying in so many words they should be excluded, we placed in
the hands of the Government an educational test which could be applied so as to shut out all
undesirables. We have had two years' experience of the working of our test, and it has
worked well. You have seen from time to time how few have managed to survive it.
The returns for the last nine months show that 31,000 persons entered Australia from over
seas, 28,000 being Europeans. Of the remainder, many of the colored persons came to
Australia to engage on pearling vessels. The arrangement we have made is that they land
only to sign their articles [of employment]. A guarantee is taken from those who bring them
that, when their time is up, they shall leave the country. By this means they never really enter
Australia. They merely fish in our waters or just outside them.
I find that out of 408 Japanese who came to Australia 374 went at once to the pearling
vessels; 11 others had been in Australia before, and were entitled to return; while one
deserted and managed to escape our clutches. (Laughter) 406 Malays came to Australia to
engage in the pearling trade. Only one was entitled to enter the country, and again we had
one deserter. 73 Papuans came over to assist in pearling; none deserted, and all will return.
To come to the persons who, either under the state law or since, have secured domicile in
Australia, the return shows that 2,571 colored persons entered the Commonwealth during
the nine months, of whom 2,561 entered under the authority of the law. There were only 10
to whom we could not or did not apply the test. Besides these there were 785 Pacific
islanders, who came in under permits which cease on March 31 next, after which no kanaka
is authorised to be brought into Australia. (Applause) While 785 came in, 978 went out.
There were 755 Chinese entered the Commonwealth, while 1,156 went out. Altogether 3172
colored people left Australia. (Applause)
The alien colored population is being steadily reduced. Now, as to the test. Of course this is
not much applied, because ship-owners know that if they bring colored aliens to this country
who are not legally entitled to land, they will have the pleasure of taking them back to their
native land. During the nine months 121 such immigrants presented themselves; nine only
got through. Out of these two were entitled to do so because they simply came from Ceylon
to purchase horses, and of the others I find that five were probably colored sailors who
deserted from one ship and enlisted on another. I don't think that during the next nine
months even nine are likely to enter.

17

You probably believe that a white Australia is secure. I hope it is, but it won't be secure
unless a vigilant watch is kept upon proposals to tamper with it. None of a serious character
have been put forward by anybody in a responsible position, but there are indications that
we may have to defend the principle yet. So far as this Government is concerned it will be
ready for the emergency. (Cheers) A white Australia does not by any means mean only the
preservation of the complexion of the people of this country. It means the multiplying of their
homes, so that we may be able to occupy, use and defend every part of our continent; it
means the maintenance of conditions of life fit for white men and white women; it means
equal laws and opportunities for all; it means protection against the underpaid labor of other
lands; it means social justice so far as we can establish it, including just trading and the
payment of fair wages. (Cheers)
A white Australia means a civilisation whose foundations are built upon healthy lives, lived in
honest toil, under circumstances which imply no degradation. Fiscally a white Australia
means protection. We protect ourselves against armed aggression, why not against
aggression by commercial means. We protect ourselves against undesirable colored aliens,
why not against the products of the undesirable alien labor? (Cheers) A white Australia is not
a surface, but it is a reasoned policy which goes down to the roots of national life, and by
which the whole of our social, industrial, and political organisations is governed.

Stanley Bruce - extract from Election speech (subsequently elected), delivered

at Dandenong, VIC, 8th October, 1928
The next great question is that of the White Australia policy. The Government stands
uncompromisingly for the White Australia policy. The overwhelming majority of the people
recognise that this policy is the basis of our national life, and would be prepared to make any
sacrifices to ensure its maintenance.
Until recently no serious challenge was offered by any section in Australia to this policy.
During recent months, however, the actions of certain extremists in the Labour movement
have given cause for grave alarm, not only to the general mass of the people, but to every
right-thinking member of the Labor Party.
The Executive of the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, which claims to speak for every
industrial organisation with the exception of the Australian Workers' Union, has been
captured by un-Australian extremists. Under their guidance, the Australasian Council of
Trade Unions has affiliated with the Pan Pacific Trade Union Secretariat. This Secretariat
has declared that one of the main tasks confronting it and its affiliated sections is to combat
'discriminatory immigration laws in some countries, chiefly in Australasia and America'. This
declaration is made in the Pan Pacific Worker of May 1, 1928, the official organ [magazine]
issued by the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, from the Trades Hall, Sydney, New
South Wales.
If this objective were realised, the death knell of the White Australia policy would be
sounded. The Labor Party of pre-war days, realising how closely the interests of the workers
were identified with this question, stood resolutely for the White Australia policy. Today the
great majority of those who have been supporting the Labour Party in politics stand equally
firmly for this great principle. Yet, so craven are the leaders of political labour, that they dare
not unequivocally denounce those extremists in their own ranks, who by insidious means are
undermining Australia's great national ideal, and substituting for it a policy framed in Asia. It
behoves the people of Australia, and particularly the workers, to pause and think deeply
before they entrust the government of the nation to the hands of men who have allowed
18

themselves to be dominated by a few extremists, who are avowedly un-Australian in

aspiration, sentiment, and outlook.

Sir Robert Menzies - extract from Election speech (subsequently elected),

delivered at Melbourne, VIC, 10th November, 1949
Australia urgently needs more people, and we shall vigorously continue a drive for them.
They should be selected with regard to our national needs, and their capacity to become
absorbed into our community.
Though we naturally want as many migrants as we can get of British stock, we denounce all
attempts to create hostilities against any migrant or group of migrants, whether Jew or
Gentile, on the grounds of race or religion. Once received into our community, a new citizen
is entitled to be treated in every way as a fellow-Australian. The strength and history of our
race have been founded upon this vital principle. We will continue to maintain Australia's
settled immigration policy, known as The White Australia Policy; well justified as it is on
grounds of national homogeneity and economic standards.
At the same time we believe in humane and commonsense ministration. All cases of aliens
resident in Australia should be considered, not as if the law allowed no human discretion but
in the light of the circumstances of each case.
Nothing has done both the Policy and our relations with Asiatic countries more harm than
some of the stupid and provocative decisions of the present Government.

Pauline Hansons Maiden Speech in Federal Parliament House of

Representatives 10th September 1996.
I come here, not as a polished politician but as a woman whos had her fair share of lifes
knocks. My view on issues is based on common sense and my experience as a mother of
four children, as a sole parent and as a business woman running a fish and chips shop.
Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is trying to address, but for
far too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of any debate by the major parties.
I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of
multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.
Between 1984 and 1995, 40% of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin.
They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will
be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to
have a say in who comes into my country.

Tom Calma - Race Discrimination Commissioner, speaking at the symposium,

Responding to Cronulla: Rethinking Multiculturalism, Brisbane, QLD, 21st
February 2006
I would like to begin by acknowledging and paying my respects to the traditional owners of
the land on which we stand today.
I would also like to thank the multi-faith centre at Griffith University for inviting me to speak at
this very important conference.
As the national Race Discrimination Commissioner, I have the specific role of promoting and
monitoring compliance with the Federal Racial Discrimination Act.

19

As part of this responsibility HREOC, that is, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission, launched a publication last year to mark the 30th Anniversary of the enactment
of the Racial Discrimination Act in October 1975. The publication was called Voices of
Australia which, in addition to providing some factual information about the legislation and its
history, was a collection of real life stories from Indigenous Australians and Australians of
different ethnic backgrounds talking about how they have lived together in Australia since the
passing of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. Not all of these stories were positive but the
vast majority were. However, it is hard, after reading these stories, to imagine that at the
same time as I and others were celebrating the passing of Australia"s first human rights
legislation, race relations in the Cronulla area were festering into the open sore that we all
witnessed in the headlines in December last year.
Through the Voices project we nationally collected 500 stories. Not one of these reflected the
intensity of hatred and violence that manifested in Cronulla two months ago.
It is important that at forums like the one we are attending today we reflect upon the causes
of this eruption of hatred that is taking the form of racism and xenophobia followed by violent
revenge and retribution. Only then can we evaluate the adequacy of the legislative and
policy frameworks set up to deal with the manifestations of racism and violence in
contemporary society.
In investigating the causes underlying the Cronulla riots, the search must take place at the
local; state; national and finally international level. Each of these arenas provides a
complexity of interrelated factors contributing to Cronulla. In the short time available I will
outline what I see as the more important of these factors.
At the local level we must look at the particular demographics operating in Cronulla and how
this might be creating tensions. On this point, members of my staff recently attended a
number of meetings involving community members from both the Bankstown and Sutherland
Shire areas. Community members were reflecting very seriously on what occurred in
Cronulla and make some very interesting observations. One councillor commented how
within the Sutherland shire there was tremendous investment, through community activities
etc, in mechanisms that bond the community together. In this regard members of the
Sutherland Shire are relatively homogenous in terms of ethnic background and this
contributes to the communitys overall social cohesion. However, it was noted that there was
very little investment within Sutherland in mechanisms that bridge the community to other
groups outside of their community. At the local level it is important we bring these two forms
of social capital, bonding and bridging capital, into balance. Outside communities who
inevitably come into a local area, particularly a beach area, must be made to feel welcome.
There must be a capacity within local communities to form a bridge to outside communities.
Members of the Lebanese community are also looking closely at the behavior of their young
men at the beach and the animosity that this behavior might provoke.
It is clear that at the local level we must look at the beach, in this case Cronulla beach, as a
site for conflict, whether it be conflict over use of space (such as for sporting pursuits) on a
crowded beach, over waves in a crowded surf, OR over women on a hot day. These conflicts
are very real as many of the young men at Cronulla on 11 December testified to. They are
conflicts that have been around Cronulla and indeed many beachside suburbs for decades
and it is time we confronted them head on to devise strategies to allow all parties to co-exist
and enjoy one of Australias favorite pastimes.
20

These local conflicts at Cronulla raise many issues but I will focus on two points. First the
question of who has the authority to resolve them and how such authority is being exercised.
On this point we must examine the role of lifeguards and police in resolving conflicts that
arise within their precincts, ensuring they are capable of dealing with the range of issues
involved including issues of harassment, bullying and sexual and racial discrimination. It is
important that those with authority on the beach are given strategies and training to ensure
these behaviors are dealt with as they arise and certainly before they escalate into mob or
gang violence the way they have in Cronulla.
Second we must recognise that while these types of conflicts have been around for many
years - taking the form of surfies against rockers, or surfies against westies, etc, there is
something new in the nature, intensity and scale of these conflicts as they are manifesting
today. That these old fights (one might say primordial fights) between young men around
territory and sex, have now taken the form of large scale racial conflict, between Middle
Eastern people and non Middle Eastern people, is the second factor we must look at and
take very seriously. It requires that we broaden our investigation over the causes of the
Cronulla riots beyond just the local factors.
I want now to look at state, national and international factors that have turned local conflicts,
like those on Cronulla beach into racial ones directed towards Arab and Muslim Australians.
In doing so I want to refer to a Report produced by HREOC in 2004 called Isma (Arabic for
Listen). The consultations on which this report is based reveal a disturbing level of
discrimination and vilification against Arab and Muslim Australians. In a sense the Report
forewarned the government and the Australian people about the potential for riots like
Cronulla to take place.
The Report concluded that international factors like September 11 and the Bali bombings,
and more recently the London attacks, increase the level of discrimination and vilification
experienced by Arab and Muslim Australian. This in turn alienates the community from the
rest of society, which in turn exacerbates the level of discrimination that they experience.
This spiral of discrimination followed by marginalisation and alienation is fuelled by fear and
prejudice and manifests into hate and retaliation.
The Report identified key areas where action needs to be taken in order to halt or slow down
this spiraling effect.
The first is Community and Political leadership;
It was, and still is, considered essential that political and community leaders at all levels
encourage Australians to uphold the principles of multiculturalism including respect for the
right of all Australians to express their own culture and beliefs and responsibility to support
the basic structures and principles of Australian society that guarantee freedom and equality
for all. I see this type of leadership as crucial to overcoming the sense of alienation and
isolation identified by so many Arab and Muslim Australians.
While many political and community leaders are acting responsibly in this regard, [making]
comments that play the race card for political purposes is not responsible leadership.
Second is Education
Confronting negative stereotyping and misinformation about Arabs and Muslims through
education is an important long-term solution to overcoming anti-Arab and anti-Muslim
21

prejudice and intolerance. Consultation participants stressed the need for more broad based
public education and for more targeted education campaigns aimed at specific groups such
as young people, employers and service providers to help dispel myths and negative
stereotypes about Arab and Muslim Australians.
A third issue is the Media
Participants in the Isma consultations felt that biased and inaccurate reporting of issues
relating to Arabs and Muslims is commonplace among some sections of the media and is
extremely damaging.
Consultation participants saw the development and implementation of strategies to
challenge stereotyping in the media as essential to achieving the broader goal of eliminating
prejudice and discrimination against Arab and Muslim Australians.
Fourthly in relation to Police...
Many consultation participants felt that a significant cause of heightened prejudice against
Arab and Muslim Australians occurred as a result of the description of criminal suspects and
offenders by reference to their presumed ethnicity, ethnic appearance or religion.
All state and territory police services, with the exception of NSW Police, use the following
four categories to describe alleged criminals, offenders, suspects, victims and missing
persons by reference to their race: "Aboriginal appearance", "Caucasian appearance",
"Asian appearance" and "Other appearance (to be specified)".
The NSW Police did not adopt the recommended four descriptors. Instead they use the
following ethnicity-based descriptors: "Asian appearance", "Aboriginal appearance",
"Black/African appearance", "White/European appearance", "Indian/Pakistani appearance",
"Pacific Islander appearance", "South American appearance" and "Middle
Eastern/Mediterranean appearance" In my view Cronulla is, to some extent, the result of the
inflammatory effect of the NSW practice on the middle eastern communitys relations with
the broader community and on their relations with police.
The Report recommends a review of this practice. It also notes that even if police in NSW
were to follow the approach adopted in other states it is often the media themselves who
take the information and present it in a manner that may be offensive.
A further issue in relation to police, was their capacity to deal with issues of harassment,
bullying and sexual and racial discrimination.
Consultation participants in the Isma project whose complaints to police were dismissed
because they did not meet the threshold for investigation under criminal law often felt
unsupported and unsure of where else to turn for assistance. Better communication between
police, community organisations and anti-discrimination agencies that may be able to assist
when an incident of discrimination or vilification is not a criminal offence, may be a solution.
Providing more effective information sharing between these organisations could also help.
The Isma Report makes a number of recommendations to deal with the issues that arose
during HREOCs consultations with Arab and Muslim Australian. The Report can be found on
the HREOCs website.

22

In response to some of these recommendations the Commission is embarking on two

projects: one focusing on Muslim Women and the other on Muslim communities relationship
with Police. These projects are funded by the federal Dept of Immigration and Multicultural
Affairs
This latter project aims to facilitate a dialogue between Muslim communities and law
enforcement agencies in order to build mutual trust and improve the capacity of the police to
respond to racial and religious discrimination, harassment and abuse.
More work needs to be done, particularly in the area of education.
Addressing the key areas identified in Isma will help create an environment where conflicts
that are occurring at the local level are able to be addressed and contained rather than
escalating into a riot that divides the broader community and brings Australia into
international disrepute.

Najaf Mazari - Hazara refugee boat arrival, extract from his 2008 memoir, The
Rugmaker of Mazar-e-sharif
I did not know that I could feel this much sorrow without a body to bury. How heartsick can I
become before I break down and weep in front of everyone?
I wander about the [refugee detention centre] with the blanket from my bed around my
shoulders, searching for a spot where I cant be seen and cant be heard.
And where would that be? I have been in the camp for three months. If such a spot exists,
wouldnt I have discovered it before this day?
We who are watched and guarded, we who are questioned, probed, doubted we are all
illegals. We have come to Australia without invitation. We have jumped the queue. I had not
heard an expression like that before I came to Australia jumping the queue. It belongs to
communities that place a very high value on orderliness, on due process.
Its a good thing, of course, to value orderliness. The community of Afghanistan is only
orderly now and again. But it was never my intention to jump this strange queue of which I
had never heard. Most of us would never have qualified for a place in the long line to start
with.
All I wanted to do was to stand up on the soil of a land where rockets did not land on my
house in the middle of the night and hold my arms wide and say, Here I am. My name is
Najaf Mazari. Do you have a use for me in this country?

Colonial Justice
In the 19th Century, significant problems and tensions existed between early settlers and the
British Colonial Governments. The nations early history as a prison colony meant there were
lingering concerns about how those cast out by society should best be treated. Men from
overseas drawn by the Gold Rush of the 1850s hoped to establish by force a nation free
from taxes, which led to tensions with those trying to establish a commonwealth where all
citizens paid their way. Some citizens inherited political baggage from their familys
homelands that led to run-ins with the law.
23

Captain Alexander Maconochie - Prison reform advocate, Hobart, TAS, 1836

The prisoners should be punished for the past, and trained for the future. These few and
simple changes would, of themselves, make punishment certain and appropriate, training
systematic, and abolish that domestic slavery, the moral injustice arising from which is at
present beyond calculation. I do not believe that the fear of punishment, or any form of
physical damage, is in any case a strong sentiment in the human mind
When a man breaks his leg, however rashly or carelessly, we have him into a hospital, and
cure him as speedily as possible, without ever thinking of modifying his treatment so as to
make his case a warning to others. We here think of the individual, not of society. But when
a poor fellow creature becomes morally dislocated, however imperious the circumstances to
which he may have fallen a victim, we abandon all thought of his welfare, and seek only to
make an example of him. We think of the society, not of the individual.

Peter Lalor - leader of the Eureka Stockade Rebellion, Bakery Hill, Ballarat,
VIC, 1st December 1854
Liberty!
Fellow diggers, outraged at the unaccountable conduct of the Camp officials, in such a
wicked license-hunt at the point of the bayonet as the one this morning, we take it as an
insult to our manhood
It is my duty now to swear you in, and to take with you the oath to be faithful to the Southern
Cross. Now hear me with attention. The man who, after this solemn oath does not stand by
our standard, is a coward at heart.
We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights
and liberties.
Comrades, assist me to pray for the safety of these men.
Bless these men that go to fight for their rights and liberties. May Heaven shield them from
danger. I charge you to commit no violence to the peaceably disposed. I will shoot the first
man who takes any property from another except arms and ammunition and what is
necessary for us to use in our defence.
Now fall in comrades, and march behind our standard to the Eureka.

Edward Ned Kelly - Bushranger (i.e. thief) and murderer of police officers,
extract from The Jerilderie Letter (Jerilderie, VIC, 10 February 1879)
This cannot be called wilful murder for I was compelled to shoot them, or lie down and let
them shoot me. It would not be wilful murder if they packed our remains in, shattered into a
mass of animated gore to Mansfield.
They would have got great praise and credit as well as promotion, but I am reckoned a
horrid brute because I had not been cowardly enough to lie down for them under such trying
circumstances, and insults to my people.
Certainly their wives and children are to be pitied, but they must remember those men came
into the bush with the intention of scattering pieces of me and my brother all over the bush,
and yet they know and acknowledge I have been wronged and my mother and four or five
men lagged innocent.
24

And is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also, who has no alternative,
only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big, ugly, fat-necked,
wombat-headed, big-bellied, magpie-legged, narrow-hipped, splay-footed sons of Irish
bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as officers of Justice or Victorian Police

25