Australia Speech

Australia

Colonised by the British over 200 years ago and now a home to 25 million people of all
different nationalities and backgrounds. A happy home for everyone in which everyone gets
equal opportunities for a good life. Except it isn’t. What everyone tells you isn’t true. Those
equal opportunities don’t actually exist. Our society isn’t as great and grand as we all think it
is. It is way more than that.

You see racism is an old problem. One that has supposedly disappeared before many of us
were even on this earth. But what if it wasn’t. It has happened through all of history. Black
people being constantly discriminated against, Africans being used as slaves and the
aboriginals being referred to as savages when the British first landed here in our beautiful
country. It wasn’t all sunshine and happiness for everybody then and it isn’t now.

Though we have gotten better over time we still have problems with racism in our society.
The stolen generation from 1910 to 1970 was a dark time in our countries history. The white
people who had taken the land from the original custodians were now taking their children
as well. The took them and sent them away to detention centres away from their family to
live the life they wanted them to live. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. Back in 2008 acting
prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised. He apologised for what people before him had done
and how they treated the aboriginals for so many years. Though it was a step in the right
direction, a simple sorry isn’t going to fix 60 years of stealing children.

In 2012-13 it was found that over half of aboriginals between the age of 15 and 64 were
unemployed while other were under a quarter. This is subtle but you can’t deny it is a real
problem. Think to yourself. If you were presented the opportunity to hire 1 of 2 people who
had the exact same skill level for the job with the only difference being their race, a majority
of you would probably pick the non-aboriginal. You might not think that you would, but a
most of you would.

So, what can we do? It’s hard to make a big change by yourself but the best thing you can
do is not do it yourself. You can’t make a change for others, they have to do it themselves,
but you can change your view. You can stick up for the minorities in our society, you can
choose to no let a person’s race affect how you look at them. In order to make the change
you have to be the change.