Australian Dream quotes - WACE

“In the winter of 2015, Australia turned to face itself. It looked into its soul and it had to ask this question. Who are we? What sort of a country do we want to be.”

Kairos - AFL season

Questions and inclusive language, rhetorical questions and inclusivity forms the base discussion.

“And this happened in a place that is most holy, most sacred to Australians. It happened on the sporting field, it happened on the football field. Suddenly, the front page was on the back page, it was in the grandstand.”

Religious discourse

Compares AFL to religion, implies worship/adoration, and revered weekly attendance.

Parallel structure, repetition

Sport become controversial.

“Thousands of voices rose to hound an indigenous man, a man who was told he wasn’t Australian, a man who was told he wasn’t Australian of the year.”

Symbolic

Extent of opposition

Word choice= connotations of hunting prey, animalistic.

Irony=the epitome of success, respect indigenous advocacy, more Australian than many

“And they hounded that man into submission.”

Loss of power giving into the higher authority

Animalistic diction.

“I can’t speak for what lay in the hearts of the people who booed Adam Goodes. But I can tell you what we heard when we heard those boos.”

Repetition of the inclusive pronoun ‘we’ invites the audience into the world of the speaker and elicits empathy for the Aboriginal experience, including feelings of rejection and inferiority.

“We heard a sound that is very familiar to us. We heard a howl.”

Repetition of the word howl reinforces the message of pain and suffering - howl is also an animal sound likened to a pack of wolves/animals.

“We heard a howl that of humiliation has echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival. We heard the howl of the Australian dream, and it said to us again, you’re not welcome.”

Along with the ‘suffering and survival’ this alliteration creates an atmosphere of anguish. The negative language sets the tone of the speech.

2 centuries - reference to white settlement and Indigenous resilience.

By saying ‘again’ the composer alludes to the fact that this injustice/displacement/disconnection is ongoing and has been repeated over time. The belief that Australian people can make something of their lives through hard work and effort, can secure a job, home, safe future.

“The Australian Dream.

We sing of it, and we recite it in verse.

Australians all let us rejoice for er are young and free.

My people die young in this country, we die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free.”

Egalitarian value - we all have equal opportunity

Allusion to national anthem

A white Australian construct

290 years free settlement not bound by class structure

Irony - does not represent everyone.

Possessive pronoun - composer aligns himself with the displaced group and makes it clear to the audience that he represent their story.

Juxtaposition with the ‘promise’ of the National anthem and the reality for Aboriginal Australians.

Indigenous health linked to impact of White influences - alcohol, sugar, drugs

Limited access to medical support

“We are fewer than three per cent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 per cent, a quarter of those Australians are locked up in our prisons, and if you are a juvenile, it is worse, it’s fifty per cent. An indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school.”

Using the rhetorical device logos the composer supports his argument with statistics which give weight to his point.

Education is a key to success. 

“I love a sunburned country

A land of sweeping plains

Of rugged mountain ranges.”

To be claimed for white Australians.

The composer uses the intertextual references to Dorothea McKellar’s poem to highlight the difference.

White Australian representation of Australia.

Sees land as physical rather than spiritual.

White settlement history, completely ignores how the Aboriginal people connect to it, unlike how they believe they own it.

“It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains, we were shot on those plains, disease ravaged us on those plains. I come from those plains.”

Ravaged - high modality

Repetition emphasises the idea that they have a long history on those plains that is ignored.

“The Australian Dream is rooted in racism.”

The alliteration of the r creates a sense of urgency.

“Because our rights were extinguished because we were not here according to British law. And when British people looked at us, they saw something subhuman, and if we were human at all, we occupied the lowest rung on civilisation’s ladder.”

Contextual background information

Insulting language

“Read about it. It happened.”

Harsh tone to emphasise his point, that it was real and everyone ignores it.

“In 1963 when I was born, I was counted amongst the flora and fauna, not among the citizens of this country.”

Alliteration emphasises the point

“My grandfather, who served to fight wars for this country when he was not yet a citizen and came back to a segregated land.”

The use of the personal pronoun ‘my’ claims the ownership of the experience and creates a story of Aboriginal displacement through family story.

“My great grandfather who was jailed for speaking his language to his grandson - my father - jailed for it!”

“And one day I want to stand here and be able to say as proudly and sing as loudly as anyone in this room, Australians all let us rejoice.”

Repetition of motif