Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise to join parliamentary colleagues from all sides of the House to pay tribute to the extraordinary life of the late Archie Roach.

The arts offers a way to tell stories, to share and process experiences, to reflect pain and to send a message of hope. Archie Roach used his music to do all this and more. Aboriginal people, of course, have an extraordinary artistic and cultural tradition. It is a culture which goes back over 60,000 years and has a central place for dance, for music, for painting, for storytelling and for many other artistic forms. There are many outstanding contemporary Aboriginal musicians, and Archie Roach stands out amidst that remarkable company.

It's really no surprise that, while all Australians feel immense pride in this extraordinary country in which we live, the inheritors of that 65,000 years of culture have a particular gift for stunning and insightful portraits of our nation and the lives we lead within it. So, as shadow arts minister, I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to the remarkable contribution and life of Archie Roach. As we've heard, he was a multi-award winning Australian musician, a campaigner for the rights of Indigenous Australians. He was just three years old when he was removed from his family. After several foster homes, he settled with Alex and Dulcie Cox, where he was surrounded by music, which ignited his passion. He became a clear and strong voice of the stolen generation. Both he and his wife, Ruby Hunter, were survivors, and the songs they wrote together became a soundtrack for Indigenous Australians. He first became known for the song 'Took the Children Away', which featured on his debut solo album, Charcoal Lane, in 1990. This single won an international human rights achievement award—the first time one was ever awarded for a song—and the album was certified 'gold' and won two ARIA awards. Charcoal Lane featured in the top 50 albums from 1992 of Rolling Stone magazine. He and Ruby Hunter co-founded the Black Arm Band, a collection of Aboriginal artists. He recorded 10 studio albums, two live albums, one soundtrack album and four compilation albums, including the soundtrack for TheTracker, and has won five ARIA awards.

In his later years in particular, Archie Roach collected a rich array of awards recognising the remarkable contribution he had made as an Australian, as an Aboriginal man and as a musician. In 2011 he was one of the first people inducted into the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll. In 2015 he was honoured in the Queen's Birthday honours list as a member of the Order of Australia for services to music as a singer songwriter, a guitarist and an activist for social justice. In 2020 he was named the 2020 Victorian Australian of the Year. Amongst the other nominations and awards he received was a Deadly award for a lifetime contribution to healing the stolen generations, in 2013. At the 2020 ARIA music awards, held on 25 November 2020, Archie Roach was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

Archie Roach contributed in a range of ways going beyond his extraordinary musical contribution. The establishment of the Archie Roach Foundation was intended to nurture meaningful and potentially life-changing opportunities for First Nations artists. Archie Roach wrote this in the statement for the foundation:

The Foundation is a way for me to give back and pass on what's been given to me from people I've met on my journey who have pointed me in a different direction to a better way of life and understanding, to freedom.

Apart from being a musician and author, Archie worked in a range of jobs throughout his life and brought to bear that very diverse experience in his music. At different times he worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor, worked floral arranging, salt shovelling, blacksmithing and in an abattoir and even spent a short period as a tent boxer. He's collaborated with a long list of great musicians and artists, including Paul Simon, Bangarra Dance Theatre, Paul Kelly, David Bridie, Jimmy Barnes, Paul Grabowsky and the Australian Art Orchestra, and he's toured extensively throughout the US, Canada, the UK and Europe with artists of the stature of Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega, Patti Smith and Joan Armatrading.

In his 2019 memoir, entitled Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music, Archie Roach told Australians about many aspects of his life in a very raw and authentic way. His memoir was awarded the Victorian Premier's literary award in February 2021. In his acceptance speech, he had this to say:

We need to understand and write about the First People's experience and history as well [as migrants' experiences] because they're both connected, they're intertwined.

And that is a powerful insight.

Archie Roach enjoyed tremendous success in his artistic career, but throughout his times of great success he never forgot the challenges he'd experienced at different times of his life. He was known for his humility, for his sense of generosity, and even as his health deteriorated he continued to perform, particularly for Aboriginal audiences.

A distinctive feature of Archie Roach's approach was that, despite the traumas that he'd experienced, he lived his life with hope, and that informed his approach as a storyteller and as a truth-teller. He had this to say:

You can reach the darkest point in your life and come back, and come good, even better.

So using his art, using his music, he told stories of very difficult times for him and others, but also sent a message of hope. As he once said, 'Songs outlive people,' and his body of work, the songs that he wrote, the songs that he performed, is a profound legacy that he leaves to all Australians, together with the inspiration of the way he carried out his life and work.

I join with other members of this House in expressing deep condolences to Archie's family and friends, particularly his sons, Amos and Eban, and foster children, Kriss, Arthur and Terrence. I close by joining with many other members in acknowledging the extraordinary life and contribution of Archie Roach, in recognising his remarkable talent and in thanking him for the truth-telling and the message of hope that he sent to Indigenous Australians and that he sent to all Australians.

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