Few in the media grasped the power of Keating’s Redfern speech that day in 1992

Paul Keating delivered a landmark speech in Redfern in 1992 – in a vastly different media landscape. Photograph: The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media/Getty Images

When Paul Keating stood up in Sydney’s Redfern Park in 1992 and said “we committed the murders; we took the children from their mothers”, the media did not entirely grasp the significance of his words.

Only the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times ran the then-prime minister’s landmark Redfern speech on page one. The Australian newspaper relegated its report the next day to page four with the headline “PM blames whites for black malaise”. The Herald Sun ran it on page 11 with the headline “PM ‘a hero’ for blast on racism”.