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Aus election may bring apology

20 November 2007 - News 24 South Africa - If Prime Minister John Howard loses Saturday's election, as predicted, Aborigines in the camps around Alice Springs will finally hear the word he has steadfastly refused to say: "Sorry".

Howard's conservative government has for 11 years rejected calls to apologise to Aborigines for past wrongs, saying that instead of dwelling on the past it will emphasise practical solutions to chronic indigenous poverty.

"Obviously there were great injustices done to indigenous people in the past but I have never been willing to embrace a formal national apology because I do not believe the current generation can take responsibility for the deeds of earlier generations," Howard said recently.

The opposition Labour party, meanwhile, says that if elected on November 24 it will promote reconciliation between black and white Australians by saying sorry to the so-called "stolen generation" of Aborigines.

Labour's indigenous affairs spokesperson Jenny Macklin has said an apology would be fair and just, as well as acting as a "circuit breaker" in race relations.

An opinion poll released on Tuesday showed opposition leader Kevin Rudd with a winning lead, dropping one point to 54% of the vote, but with Howard narrowing the gap by gaining one to 46%.

If this swing away from the government was uniform across the nation on Saturday it would result in Labour gaining the 16 extra seats it needs for victory, The Australian newspaper said.

A source of deep shame

Regardless of their differences, both sides of politics acknowledge the plight of Australia's Aboriginal community is a source of deep shame for a wealthy, first world nation.

There are about 470 000 Aborigines among Australia's 20 million people, yet they form 25% of the prison population and have three times the infant mortality and coronary heart disease rates of non-indigenous Australians.

Life expectancy among Aborigines is 17 years shorter than the overall average, a situation the Australian Medical Association has condemned as a national disgrace.

The situation is starkly illustrated in the camps surrounding Alice Springs, where some dwellings are simply corrugated iron shacks, known as humpies, erected in the red dust to provide some shade from the fierce sun.

The impoverished ghettos, some just 1.5km from the centre of town, are where most of the Aboriginal population of Alice Springs lives.

Their 3 000 inhabitants struggle with astronomically high rates of alcoholism and domestic violence.

Locals say up to 30 people are sometimes crammed into a single house when visitors from remote outback communities come into town, often staying for three months at a time.

The problems in the camps and at other Aboriginal communities in the vast Northern Territory were a major factor behind Howard's decision mid-year to deploy police backed by the military in a bid to improve living conditions.

Move still fell short of an apology

Prompted by a report outlining horrific levels of child abuse in indigenous communities, Howard gave the federal government direct control of the camps, introducing bans on alcohol and pornography.

Critics condemned the radical intervention as Howard's attempt to win middle-class white votes by being tough on Aborigines, although the centre-left Labour party backed his unprecedented move.

Howard's supporters reject the criticism, saying his policies are a genuine attempt to find solutions to intractable problems arising from the mixture of an ancient nomadic culture and contemporary society.

The prime minister followed up the policy with a proposal last month for a national referendum on recognising Aborigines in the constitutional preamble, admitting at the time that he had long struggled on the issue of indigenous reconciliation.

But Aborigines say the move still fell short of an apology and labelled it an empty gesture from Howard prompted by the looming election.

Source: News 24 SA

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