SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
WELCOME TO PRESIDENT ROBINSON OF IRIELAND
CANBERRA, 27 OCTOBER 1992
President Robinson, on behalf of the Government and the
people of Australia it is my great pleasure to welcome
you. It is truly a great pleasure for the reason that in
certain significant and undeniable ways we Australians
share your rrishness.
Even those who are not of Irish descent will say that
when they go to Treland it is uncanny how much they feel
at home.
We would like to think that you feel something Similar
among us here.
And when we fppl the-se bondq of recognition and affection
we shouldn't be too surprised.
For at every major point in our history since 1788 the
Irish have been there, in word and deed and spirit.
It is not easy to say just what that spirit comprises.
There has frequently been an eloinent of rebellion about
it of course, but it's much more than that.
The Trish contribution has been primarily to the
language, literature, law, politics, religion and
philosophy of Australia.
And football, and horse racing, and farming, and eating,
and drinking, and story-talling, and what is these days
called the hospitality industry, and music.
To name a few.
In other words, the Irish have been a great clvilising
force. A great creative force.
We share some basic attitudes.
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Perhaps the most important of them, as you said in your
speech to the Press Club yesterday, is a deep attachment
to the land& we live in: the land itself lives in our
minds, and informs the way we think about ourselves.
More than anything else, the shape of the continent
somehow defines a disparate and far-flung population as
one Australian people.
We have long been thoroughly urbanised and
industrialised, but the land is still at the centre of
our identity.
And I've no doubt that the Irish imagination played some
part in keeping it there.
But as I am sure you know, the Aboriginal people, who
were herp for 40,000 years or more before us, understood
this land in ways that we can never hope to emulate.
Yesterday you told the story of the Choctaw Indians who,
on hearing of the Irish famine, raised seven hundred
dollars and sent it to Ireland for the relief of the
victims. It was a case of people who were already displaced
feeding those who were about to be.
In another nineteenth century example of the global
village, in turn, those Irish were among the settlers who
displaced the Aboriginal people of Australia.
It is one of our great hopes in this last decade of the
twentieth century that we can put to rights the
devastating impact that the European occupation of their
country had on the Aboriginal people, and that we can
reconcile at last the economic, social and cultural
differences which still keep Aboriginal and non-
Aboriginal Australians apart.
This should not be beyond people who have succeeded in
creating a very rich and harmonious society from an
extraordinary variety of cultures.
Through these and many other avenues of social and
economic policy designed to strengthen the ties which
bind Australians, the Government I lead is seeking to
create an Australia which is more truly one community and
nation. President I know Ihat you also look to reconcile the
differences which make for the continuing tragedy of
NorthernIreland. I know that you seek to bring opportunity and justice
equally to women and men and close the divide between
them.
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I know that you seek to narrow the gap between rich and
poor, and that your great hope is that everywhere the
outcasts of the world can be brought in.
I know, that being Irish, you must be attracted to your
country's past, to your ancient heritage and traditions
but I know that you look to your country's future.
We have this in common too.
In the last decade Ireland has grown out of the shadow of
both Britain and its own past to become a more outwardlooking
nation, more confident of its identity, more
alive to the world and its region.
A nation carving out for itself a very independent
position in European affairs, and with it a stronger
place for itself in the world.
It has done these things of necessity. Because they were
the only way to give Ireland back its future. The only
way to ensure that the Irish of the next generation will
have no need to emigrate.
So these days when we Australians and Irish say that we
see something deeply familiar in each other, it is not
merely our common past but also our present
preoccupations and our aspirations which we recognise.
For Australia has done the very same things we are more
open to the world, more confident and independent-minded,
and alive to our region, the Asia Pacific, as you are to
Europe. Like you we have stepped out of the past.
old countries we might be in different ways, but in a
sense we're younger than we have ever been.
President, we share many of your hopes.
We share your country's determination to be a modern and
dynamic nation.
our affinity with your country and our roots in all of
its political and religious traditions has always made
the conflict in Northern Treland a matter of deep concern
to us, and we earnestly hope that the current talks being
chaired by our former Governor General, Sir Ninian
Sephen, will be successful.
We share your hope for sexual equality and social
justice; and, at the end of a decade in which some
countries have discounted these ambitions, we are proud
to say that we have made substantial progress toward
them.
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That is something else we share it may even be the
strongest of the ties that bind us we know that when we
change we have to take our people with us.
President, the light which you keep burning in your
window tells all your compatriots around the world that
they will always be welcome home.
But, with the greatest respect, there's no need to keep
it burning for the six million Australians of Irish
ancestry. It would never occur to us for a moment that we weren't
welcome. It would never occur to any of the other eleven million
for that matter.
We presume we're as welcome as you are here. And that is
very welcome.
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