Sally Warhaft, ed. - Well May We Say...

Sally Warhaft, ed.,

Well May We Say…:

The Speeches That Made Australia

Melbourne: Black Inc., 2004.

Paperback xx + 588 pp. 1 86395 277 2

What a delight! Students of Australian history are well supplied and well served by books of documents, but somehow they all share a desperately serious air of blood on the wattle. This collection of extracts from over 100 speeches certainly does not trivialise the Australian past. Indeed, its title comes from Gough Whitlam’s sober declaration of hostility to the governor-general who had just dismissed him from office. There are a few more-or-less wise words from outsiders, such as the Queen and the Pope, and others from those who were embraced by their new country, such as the British teenager Ninian Stephen. Most of the material is about being Australian and feeling Australian. Of course, there are words of familiar ring: Parkes on the ‘crimson thread’, Ned Kelly in the dock, Menzies on the forgotten people, Chifley invoking the light on the hill, Arthur Calwell’s calculation that two Wongs do not make a White. There are also some of the resounding statements of the past half century, some too recent for the standard anthologies, such as Harold Holt’s pledge to LBJ and Blainey’s ‘black armband’. Grouped into nine sections, the collection runs from Governor Phillip to the Howards and Hansons of today. It would make an excellent teaching resource for a seminar on Australia and Australian identity, within the country or overseas.