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Rudd promises apology to Aborigines

27 November 2007 - Press TV Iran - Australia's new government has promised to issue a formal apology to indigenous Aborigines for the abuses they suffered in the past.

The Labor Party leader, Kevin Rudd, said he would apologize on behalf of the nation early in his first term, suggesting that it would be done by next year. This move will make Rudd's government the first federal administration to ever apologize for the past policies.

The apology addresses the policies which caused the continent's original inhabitants to become part of the most impoverished minority. From 1915 to 1969, thousands of Aboriginal children were handed over to white families under Australian government assimilation policies.

Outgoing Prime Minister John Howard -as well as his predecessors- had repeatedly refused to apologize, arguing that this generation should not be made to feel guilty for mistakes of the past.

Rudd's sweeping victory over Howard in Saturday's elections ended almost 12 years of conservative rule in Australia.

He also immediately put the signing of the Kyoto Protocol -an agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions- at the top of his international agenda. This policy leaves the US isolated as the only industrialized country refusing to sign the protocol.

Source: Press TV Iran

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