Sol Bellear AM - memories of 1992 Paul Keating Redfern Speech

“We look around the world and see some of the top speeches that world leaders have given – they’ve changed countries, they’ve changed wars, they’ve changed the ideology of everything. These were not just words that Paul Keating spoke. This was putting the country on notice that we need to educate ourselves about Aboriginal people, about our history and about our past”

Saturday 10th December 2022 marks 30 years since then Prime Minister Paul Keating gave his historic address at Redfern Park in 1992.

At the time, Sol Bellear AM, a Legend of land Rights was deputy Chair of ATSIC and had the honour of introducing Keating to the crowd.

Just days before his passing in 2017, Sol gave his final interview to mark the occasion, recalling the day fondly. Below is an excerpt from the full interview that can be viewed here:

“In the beginning, probably two paragraphs into Paul’s speech, the crowd probably had the same feelings I had – oh yes, here is just another prime minister welcoming the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. But then he started getting into some things, saying things, and he was very passionate, emotional perhaps."

“When he got to the part where he said ‘we took the children from their mothers’, that’s when the crowd erupted. Aboriginal people, non-Aboriginal people, they just knew that this man is very, very genuine; this man as the prime minister and this man’s government had made a very, very fair dinkum commitment.”

This interview has been released with permission from his family. Photo credits: City of Sydney archives, photograph by John Paoloni.