4 February 1998, Canberra, Australia
This is a part transcript . The full transcript is pasted below.
My heart is heavy. I worry for my children and my grandchildren. I worry that what has proven to be a stable society, which now recognizes my people as equals, is about to be replaced. How dare you. I repeat, how dare you.
You told my people that your system was best. We have come to accept that. We have come to believe that. The dispossessed, despised adapted to your system. Now you say that you were wrong and that we were wrong to believe you.
Suddenly you are saying that what brought the country together, made it independent, that ensured its defence, saw it through peace and war, and saw it through depression and prosperity, you are saying all this must go.
I cannot see the need for change, I cannot see how it will help my people. I cannot see how it will resolve the question of land and access to land that troubles us.
Fellow Australians, what is most hurtful is that after all we have learned together, after subjugating us and then freeing us, once again you are telling us that you know better. How dare you? How dare you?
I look across this chamber and cannot fail to see the very rich amongst you … what reason do you have now in 1998 to tell the indigenous people that we must accept what you have decided about our country again. Why are you doing this?
