On-screen text reads, 'Viewer Advice - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that the following media resource may contain images and voices of people who have died.'
Shot of Mick Dodson speaking to Liz Jackson. On-screen text that reads, 'Mick Dodson, Social Justice Commissioner 1993-1998'.
MICK DODSON:
Well, to put it, perhaps, in simple terms... Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander people have been here for a long, long time. The British came along, took the country without our consent, decimated the population, ignored any rights we may have had, asserted, in fact, that we had no rights to the land. And that had remained unaddressed - that was wrong, of course - and that had remained unaddressed for... for two centuries or more. That's what Mabo meant. Mabo addressed that wrong.
Aerial shot of the Parliament. Camera cuts to a shot of Paul Keating speaking to Liz Jackson. On-screen text that reads, 'Paul Keating, Prime Minister 1991-1996'.
PAUL KEATING:
When the High Court decision came down, I thought, 'This is the crack of light one should crawl through,' because this has got the truth about it, whereas they're a set of rights, as distinct from a gift. You know, the set of legislative land rights are a gift, whereas this was a set of rights earned by way of traditional association.
LIZ JACKSON:
And this was a crack of light to getting towards national land rights? Is that what you're talking about?
PAUL KEATING:
Getting towards dealing with the fundamental colonial grievance - that was the dispossession en masse of the lands of the original occupants of Australia.
Archival footage of an aerial shot of a large crowded seated outdoors, in front of a makeshift stage.
(Applause)
Archival footage shows close-up shot of Paul Keating seated in the audience. Camera cuts to a shot of an Indigenous man with face paint playing a didgeridoo.
MAN:
It now gives me great pleasure to introduce the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Paul Keating, to officially launch the International Year of the World's Indigenous People.
Archival footage shows Paul Keating walking past the didgeridoo player, towards the stage.
LIZ JACKSON:
It's six months after Mabo, in the Sydney suburb of Redfern. Until now, Paul Keating had had very little involvement in Aboriginal affairs. He'd taken no public stance on Indigenous rights or grievances. That was about to change.
Archival footage shows Paul Keating speaking at a podium on stage with a camera filming him from below the stage. Three men stand behind Paul Keating on stage - a white man and an Indigenous man both dressed in business attire and another Indigenous man in traditional dress.
PAUL KEATING:
The plight of Aboriginal Australians affects us all.
LIZ JACKSON:
It was only about halfway through the speech that the crowd began to take in what Keating was actually saying.
PAUL KEATING:
It begins, I think, with an 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 and the alcohol. We committed the murders.
(Cheering)
PAUL KEATING:
We took the children from their mothers.
(Loud cheering, applause)
PAUL KEATING:
We practised discrimination and exclusion.
Close-up shots of the crowd show many Indigenous people in the audience.
LIZ JACKSON:
The Prime Minister then made his public commitment to Mabo as the road to reconciliation.
Archival footage shows close-up shot of Paul Keating speaking at the podium.
PAUL KEATING:
We can make it an historic turning point - the basis of a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Aboriginal Australians.
Shot of Mick Dodson speaking to the camera.
MICK DODSON:
Oh, it gave all of us a great deal of hope. In particular, I felt encouraged by it, enormously encouraged by it, because for the first time, at least since Federation, we had a prime minister who had the courage to speak truths that were hitherto unspoken.
Shot of Nick Minchin speaking to Liz Jackson. On-screen text reads, 'Nick Minchin, Liberal Party Senator 1993-2011'.
NICK MINCHIN:
To me it was Keating trying to create some mechanism by which he could rescue a government which was in trouble and give it some, you know, purpose and an agenda that would distinguish it from the Coalition, which at that time, of course, was well ahead in the polls.
Archival footage of Paul Keating shaking hands with the two men in business suits before leaving the stage.
NICK MINCHIN:
But I thought it was risky for Keating to do that, because it was well outside the, sort of, mainstream Australian sense on these issues.
Shot of Paul Keating speaking to Liz Jackson.
PAUL KEATING:
Oh, I knew absolutely - you only had to touch this issue and it went off on you all over the place. That's why no-one ever done anything with it.
Archival footage of Paul Keating standing on a stage in front of a cheering crowd, with the word 'Australia' plastered across the drawn stage curtain. On-screen text reads, 'Bankstown Sports Club, Sydney'.
LIZ JACKSON:
Three months later, against all expectations, Paul Keating won the 1993 Federal Election.
Archival footage shows close-up shot of Paul Keating in front of a microphone.
PAUL KEATING:
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Well, this is the sweetest victory of all.
(Crowd cheers wildly)
Archival footage shows a shot of the audience and a shot of Paul Keating on stage with his wife.
LIZ JACKSON:
Now Keating had the mandate of this victory to move on Mabo.
Shot of Paul Keating speaking to Liz Jackson.
PAUL KEATING:
The High Court decision was just an opportunity for the moment, but the moment would close quickly unless there was a system of protection - a legislative system of protection for native title.
Shot of Anthony Mason speaking to Liz Jackson. On-screen text reads, 'Sir Anthony Mason, Chief Justice, High Court 1987-1995'.
ANTHONY MASON:
Paul Keating's role was important because he supported the Court's decision. He took the very important step of supporting the enactment of the Federal Native Title Act. Without the Federal Native Title Act, you would not have had a system, a process for orderly handling of Indigenous land claims, and that was absolutely essential.