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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lIn praise of ... apologies14 February 2008 - The Guardian UK - Saying sorry is in vogue. Public expressions of regret are an irritating substitute for action, as any train passenger will testify. They are the politics of gesture, but there are some gestures that matter. The corrections column, on this page, matters because we believe it is only by acknowledging our mistakes that we can carry on with our job. On a bigger scale, it was right for the Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd to apologise to the country's Aboriginal population and broadcast it on giant television screens. The apology was for the stolen generations - children, mostly of Aboriginal mothers and European fathers, taken from their families in a strategy of white assimilation which lasted from 1910 to 1970. The policy was only fully exposed in a report a decade ago. The wording of the apology was fought over until the 11th hour. Opposition leader Brendan Nelson objected to the use of the word "stolen" and in voting for the motion said his generation should not feel guilt for what was done "in many, but certainly not all cases, with the best of intentions". Not much regret there, or from John Howard, Mr Rudd's rightwing predecessor, who boycotted the occasion. Former premiers Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating had the decency to turn up. The apology has unleashed another debate over compensation. Nothing will rectify the wrong that has taken place. But the motion includes a commitment to ensure that past wrongs are not repeated. It represents a new beginning Source: The Guardian
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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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