[Oe List ...] Australia's apology to Aborigines

[Isobel & Jim Bishop]

Kevin Rudd, the new Australian Prime Minister, has said there will be an 
apology to Aborigines of the "stolen generation".  It will be in Parliament 
on Wed. 13th February, the first item on the first day of business of the 
new Parliament.  On the previous day, the ceremonies etc., there will be a 
'smoking ceremony' of welcome led by a woman from the local indigenous 
people.

These are big events - the previous Prime Minister John Howard refused, 
loudly and firmly for eleven years, to have anything to do with the word 
"Sorry" or anything like it.  (He was walloped in the November elections and 
in fact lost his own seat - only the second time this happened to a Prime 
Minister since we began in 1901.)

However Kevin Rudd is limiting his response - he will do quite a bit less 
than some Aborigines are asking for.  The "stolen generation" is about a 
particular social policy when Aboriginal children were taken from their 
parents, willy-nilly, and either fostered to white families or placed in 
institutions.   They lost touch with their parents, their roots, and their 
culture.  Some never saw their parents again, others linked up when they 
were in their thirties or forties.  A Royal Commission
investigated about ten years ago, and published the whole sorry story.

So that was bad enough, and that is what Rudd says the whole government will 
apologise for.  In the process he's consulting with Aboriginal people and he 
clearly wants to get it right.  The Opposition is split, some support the 
apology, the Leader is playing games a bit.

But, it's not for other aspects of displacement or mistreatment going back 
all those long 200 years.  It's not, at face value, on behalf of everyone - 
"the people" - but from the government for its policies.  And Rudd is 
keeping right away from the issue of compensation, which many Aborigines and 
advocates are asking for.  (In South Australia in the Supreme Court a man 
who was taken away from his parents when just a few weeks old has just been 
awarded $A 400,000 + $A 200,000 interest.)
[$A 1 is around US 90c.]

So there are some who say there is still going to be some unfinished 
business.   But it's a huge step nevertheless, and we're all  thinking and 
talking about the next step in national reconciliation.

Hallelujah!

Grace and peace,

Isobel and Jim