Stranded in France, the Miles Franklin winner reflects on what her country looks like from the outside: violent, racist and in denial
- This is an edited version of a speech which opened the Sydney writers’ festival on 27 April
I’m on the Dfat flight waitlist, but nothing is leaving Paris. We lament all this on the “Stranded Aussies” forum. Home’s out of reach. Lately I’m reminded of that Neil Diamond song – with tweaked lyrics it would go: “Nowadays, I’m lost between two shores / France is fine, but it ain’t home / Australia is home, but it ain’t mine no more.”
It doesn’t feel like mine sometimes. Or if it does, it feels as if it’s the mine of 30 years ago. Why are 30-year-old royal commission recommendations still being debated, with nothing implemented? If we’ve said these things for decades, if the tools are there but without the societal or political will to implement change, then what good is time spent on the whittling of wood, the sharpening of stone to begin with? What good is a speech? What good is a royal commission? What is the point of all these reductionist words?
