Australian History Quotes

Australians have made a lot of mistakes, we have treated Aboriginal people very badly, and we have our share of racists and bigots.

I'm not saying this in a condescending kind of way, but it's quite simple: The making of America was a heroic thing. Australia has a much murkier, much more complex view of its history. It's just full of all these open wounds we don't really know what to do with.

We moved, and there was a golden era in the '40s when we were so conscious of who we were as Australians.

The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. I take a very different view. I believe that the balance sheet of our history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much more as a nation of which we can be proud of than which we should be ashamed.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

'The Secret River' began because, at the age of 50, I suddenly realised I knew nothing about how my own family had got its foothold in Australia.

In this eventful period the colony of New South Wales is already far advanced.

I am writing a book called 'The History of Australia in Hundred Objects.' It's of things we have invented in Australia. And you know, some of them are amazing. We invented the clapper boards used in films. We invented those cranes - those big long cranes used on construction sites.

There are parliamentarians in Australia I really support. People through history, you know? Men like Ned Kelly in Australia who challenged ideals. Governor William McKell in Australia really set the tone of building a nation. The fundamentals of the country are built on what the governor McKell created. I think Sea Shepherd (Conservation Society) is a wonderful organization and I support what they do.

Men and women of western Sydney, it's appropriate, you apparently believe, that Australia's oldest surviving Prime Minister should make the concluding remarks in Australia's oldest surviving Government House. I hope the building's foundations are a bit more substantial than mine.

We all go back to our roots. My father went to the central west, went to Ilfracombe in 1919. He was the manager of the wool scour there. And, Ilfracombe was right at the heart of Australia's great wool industry, and my mother was a teacher at Winton.

Anybody who achieves what Malcolm Fraser achieved in his life deserves respect as a quite extraordinary Australian.

My grandparents would never admit to being Tasmanian, but I think it's really great and funny. But I guess, in the past, Tasmanians just weren't quite accepted. You had that lazy reference to them being felons.

Both my parents are English and came out to Australia in 1967. I was born the following year. My parents, and immigrants like them, were known as '£10 poms.' Back then, the Australian government was trying to get educated British people and Canadians - to be honest, educated white people - to come and live in Australia.

Australia's treatment of her Aboriginal people will be the thing on which the world will judge Australia and Australians - Not just now, but in the greater perspective of history.

Hostility towards China distorted Australia's international affairs for 20 years until 1972, but reconciliation with China 30 years ago had produced a quarter century of constructive bipartisan relations with our region and the world, unmatched in Australian history.

The 2007 Labor campaign was the most presidential in Australian history, with a slogan - Kevin07 - exceeded in its banality only by its success.

His [Gough Whitlam's] effect on the geo-cultural-political map of Australia is so vast that wherever you stick the pin in you get a wealth of Gough's legacy.

For us Australians, Singapore also represents sacred soil. Almost 2000 Australians died here in the defense of your island country and our neighborhood.

Australia without the Irish would be unthinkable... unimaginable... unspeakable.

I was profoundly embarrassed by it [the White Australia Policy] and did all I could to change it.

Obviously all of us have thought about Vietnam, particularly in my generation in Australia that were part of conscription and fought there. Our friends came back, forever changed. So there were a lot of questions.

I've seen it [Australia] go from a lot of small towns to big towns, but I think it has found its identity in all this time... it's a very special country, I could easily live here.

Among many other reforms, Australians pioneered the secret ballot and universal suffrage.

If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.