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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lRudd says apology to Aborigines will remove 'blight on nation's soul'9 February 2008 - CanadaEast - Many Australians will disagree with a national apology to Aborigines for past mistreatment, but it will remove a "blight on the nation's soul," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Sunday. Rudd's new government will ask Parliament on Wednesday to apologize to generations of Aboriginal children who were seized from their families under past policies aimed at making them grow up like white Australians. Aboriginal leaders have welcomed the move as a historic milestone in race relations. The apology will be televised live around Australia and 100 members of the so-called "stolen generations" will be flown to the national capital to witness it in person. Rudd, whose centre-left government won power in November elections, said most Australians want the official apology as recommended in 1997 by a government-commissioned inquiry into the stolen generations. Rudd's predecessor John Howard, who was prime minister from 1996 until the last election, refused to apologize because he argued that contemporary Australians were not responsible for past injustices. "It's never going to be a unity ticket: a whole lot of people out there have raised objections and concerns," Rudd told Nine Network television Sunday of the apology. "But I think this is a blight on the nation's soul. I think we need to act on it," he added. Howard's conservative coalition, now in opposition, last week gave in-principle support to the apology motion. But opposition leader Brendan Nelson said he objected to the term "stolen generations" because it carried criminal connotations. Rudd said Sunday the final wording had not yet been finalized. But he has told Nelson it will include an apology to the children who were taken, their descendants and families and will recognize past mistreatment of Aborigines. About 100,000 children were taken from Aboriginal mothers between 1910 and the 1970s. Aborigines account for about 450,000 of the Australian population of 21 million. They are the poorest ethnic group in the country and are most likely to be jailed and unemployed. They die on average 17 years younger than other Australians. Rudd said the apology was the first step in closing the gap between the quality of life of Aborigines and other Australians. Source: CanadaEast
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its one year on from the Australian Governments controversial intervention into NT Indigenous communities
action Roll back, listen to Indigenous community voices speaking about the intervention |
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