Dr Lowitja Lois O'Donoghue Smart AC CBE DSG, is a lauded Aboriginal Australian and retired public administrator.

In 1976, Dr O'Donoghue was the first Aboriginal woman to be inducted into the new Order of Australia, in recognition of her work in the welfare field. She was named Australian of the Year in 1984, for her work to improve the welfare of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. From 1990 to 1996 she was the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) and was invested as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) on 26 January 1999.

This is Dr O'Donoghue's speech opening the National Congress of Australia’s First People on 8 June 2011, read by Shareena Clanton.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this recording may contain names and words of deceased persons.

John Curtin served as the 14th Prime Minister of Australia from 1941 until his death in 1945.

Curtin's leadership skills and personal character were acclaimed by his political contemporaries. He is frequently cited as one of Australia's greatest prime ministers.

In 1941, John Curtin announced that Australia was now at war with Japan via a national broadcast. For MTC Audio Lab, this historic speech is read by Greg Stone.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this recording contains names and words of deceased persons.

John Thomas 'Jack' Patten was an Aboriginal Australian civil rights activist and journalist. The President and co-founder of the Aborigines Progressive Association, he was a brilliant speaker, one of the best of his era. In this role, Patten organised the 1938 Day of Mourning protest, and presented Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, with his and William Ferguson's manifesto Aborigines Claim Citizenship Rights.

This is Jack Patten’s Opening address to Day of Mourning protest, 26 January 1938 at Australia Hall in Sydney read by Mark Coles Smith.

Faith Bandler AC was an Australian civil rights activist of South Sea Islander and Scottish-Indian heritage and a campaigner for the rights of Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders.

As general secretary of Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), there are many campaigns for which Faith Bandler was chief instigator and spokesperson, but she was perhaps best known for her leadership in the campaign for the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal Australians.

Bandler was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on 11 June 1984, in recognition of her service to Aboriginal welfare and was invested as a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2009.

This is her speech from the Talkin’ up Reconciliation Convention in August 1999, Faith, Hope & Reconciliation, read by Leonie Whyman.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this recording may contain names and words of deceased persons.

Dame Enid Lyons was an Australian politician, the first woman elected to the House of Representatives and the first woman to serve in federal cabinet.

In 1925, she became one of the first two women to stand for the Labor Party at a Tasmanian state election. In 1943, Lyons successfully stood for the United Australia Party in Darwin. She and Dame Dorothy Tangney became the first two women elected to federal parliament.

Lyons joined the new Liberal Party in 1945 and was the first woman in cabinet, serving as Vice-President of the Executive Council in the Menzies Government from 1949 to 1951 served. She retired from parliament after three terms.

With Joseph Lyons, who was Prime Minister of Australia from 1932 until his death in 1939, she had twelve children. Her youngest was not quite 10 when she gave her Maiden Speech as the Member for Darwin on 29 September 1943

For MTC Audio Lab's Great Australian Speeches, Dame Enid Lyons Maiden Speech is read by Marg Downey.

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer, editor and educator of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage with strong ancestral ties to south east queensland. They write fiction, poetry and non-fiction. van Neerven’s first book, Heat and Light was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Their poetry collection Comfort Food was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize and Highly Commended for the 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. The following poems, read by Leonie Whyman, are from van Neerven’s collection, Throat, which was released in 2020 and was recipient of the inaugural Quentin Bryce Award.

Ellen van Neerven’s poems Politicians Having Long Showers on Stolen Land, White Excellence and All That is Loved are read by Leonie Whyman.

Throat is now available to purchase at Readings: https://www.readings.com.au/products/31315625/throat

In the landmark 1943 election, Dorothy Tangney was the first woman to be elected to the Senate.

A member of the Australian Labor Party, she served as a Senator for Western Australia from 1943 to 1968. Tangney was the first woman elected to the Senate and one of the first two women elected to federal parliament, along with Dame Enid Lyons. She served nearly 25 years in the Senate, being re-elected on four more occasions before her defeat in 1967.

This is Dorothy Tangney’s Maiden Speech to Parliament 24th September 1943, read by Izabella Yena.

The Man from Snowy River is a poem by Australian bush poet Banjo Paterson. First published in Australian news magazine, The Bulletin, on 26 April 1890, the poem was written at a time when Australia was developing a distinct identity as a nation.

The location of the ride fictionalised in the poem was in the region of today's Burrinjuck Dam, north-west of Canberra in Australian Capital Territory. Paterson had helped round up brumbies as a child and later owned property in this region.

In this MTC Audio Lab episode, Banjo Paterson's The Man from Snowy River is read by Mark Coles Smith.

We kick off our new series of audio dramas, MTC Audio Lab, with Great Australian Speeches, comprising speeches, texts and poems designed for spoken performance. From political leaders to leading Indigenous voices, from outlaw folk heroes to iconic artists, these speeches reveal the direct and powerful impact our words have on the world.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this recording contains names and words of deceased persons.