Australia To Apologize To Aborigines

New Labor Party Parliament Vows To Make Amends For "Stolen Generation" Of Native Residents

(AP)  Australia will issue its first formal apology to the country's indigenous people next month, a senior minister said Wednesday, a milestone that could ease tensions with a minority once subjected to policies including the removal of mixed-blood children from families on the premise that their race was doomed.

The Feb. 13 apology to the so-called "stolen generation" of Aborigines will be the first item of business for the new Parliament, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose Labor Party won November elections, had promised to push for an apology, which has been debated in Australia for years.

"The apology will be made on behalf of the Australian government and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people," Macklin said in a statement.

Macklin and Rudd have previously ruled out financial compensation for the impoverished minority, and Macklin did not mention that subject Wednesday. But she said she sought broad input on the wording of the apology, which she hoped would signal the beginning of a new relationship between Australia and the impoverished minority.

"Once we establish this respect, the government can work with indigenous communities to improve services aimed at closing the 17-year life expectancy gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians," she said.

Australia's original inhabitants, Aborigines number about 450,000 among a population of 21 million. Aborigines are the poorest ethnic group in Australia and are most likely to be jailed, unemployed and illiterate.

Australia has had a decade-long debate about how best to acknowledge Aborigines who were affected by a string of 20th century policies that separated mixed-blood Aboriginal children from their families - the cohort frequently referred to as Australia's stolen generation.

From 1910 until the 1970s, around 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws based on a premise that Aborigines were a doomed race and saving the children was a humane alternative.

A national inquiry in 1997 found that many children taken from their families suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from the loss of family and culture.

The inquiry recommended that state and federal authorities apologize and compensate those removed from their families. But then-Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly refused to do either, saying his government should not be held responsible for the policies of former officials.

[brianbwb-2009]

If Macklin and Rudd, will not compensate the victims and their former families for their loss, then their apology means nothing, and I hope that the representative of the victims tells Macklin and Rudd to stick their apology up "down under".

[lolly58335]

As native peoples, the Aborigines will graciously accept the (too little, too late) apology; as the natives of the Americas accepted the Vaticans apology for forcible conversion and genocide. Then I hope they agitate like never before to improve their situation, before the (too little, too late) racial shame & vague sense of responsibility of majority white Australians disappears (again).

[rushman71]

Oh, now they apologize.......and after how long?

MagicMerlin8: You are not making any sense. This has nothing to do with the spread of Christianity. At the time, it was to spread the rule of the British Empire, idiot!!!

[erasmus6]

It is amazing isn''t it, how the white man has to destroy everything? They invaded North America, Australia and Africa and weren''t happy just living on the land, they had to DESTROY the original inhabitants.

[joyous88]

We ,the USA, should apoligize to the American Indians,

but hell, we can not even get Bush to give them health care.

Every single politician has healthcare and it is socialized medicine by the way, something the rest of us are forbidden.

[prinzowhales]

I''d like to apologize to the aborigines as well...does anyone know where they are drinking today?

[prinzowhales]

Of course, the long term psychological harm is only found in aborigine children...not in the hundreds of thousands of American children stolen by the CDC, placed on psychotropic drugs and who are five times more likely to be abused in foster care than they would if they stayed with their families...Perhaps the scum-sucking dogs at CDC should apologize...and then enjoy a game of Russian roulette.

[erasmus6]

"I''''d like to apologize to the aborigines as well...does anyone know where they are drinking today?" posted by Prinzowhales

They probably wouldn''t be drinking if their people hadn''t been forced off their land, killed, tortured etc.

What do you do if you have nothing to live for?

[korinsha]

It''s a little late now. In Canada, not sure about the US, the First Nations people that were put in the Residential School Programs up through the 70''s (where the government kidnapped children from reservations and their parents, beat, raped and tortured them until they stopped using their native tongues, told them they were subhuman and forced them to use good "Christian" names) apologized... by paying out.

Anyone who was in one of those schools was given money. The average cheque per person is about $60k. That''s still pathetic in my opinion but at least they''re trying. I wonder if the Aussies will be handing out cheques to the people they kidnapped and tortured?

That''d make the apology seem less like pointless face-saving pandering!

[stezzer]

You can only apologize for something you are personally responsible for. What your granddad did to somebody else''s granddad is not something you would apologize for.

The treatment dished out to the aborigines was wrong, period. But apologizing now is just plain stupid.

Looks like the socialists have already started talking gibberish in the land down under.

[deadjester1]

why should the Aussie govt. apologize to the aborigines, and why for that matter should the American govt. apologize or pay reparations to the native americans? We took this land fair and square, I mean, they had complete control, complete and total land rights, and they were too stupid to figure out reasonable prices to sell it at. So we took it, and they fought, and we won. Winston Churchill once said the aborigines and the red indians in America were beaten by superior races, perhaps he was right. Regardless of whether or not he was, its over now, its time to move on.

[toolmangler-2009]

Posted by MagicMerlin8 at 09:49 AM : Jan 30, 2008



I guess the Muslims and Mongols, Mayan, Inca and Aztec peoples never did anything like that, right? it was ''only the Chrstians that ever did that. You might have been partially right if you had said "The legacy of ''Man''"

[ezol-2009]

"MagicMerlin8: You are not making any sense. This has nothing to do with the spread of Christianity. At the time, it was to spread the rule of the British Empire, idiot!!!"

Australia was independant of "The British Empire" after 1901. So umm.. someones an idiot and it''s not MagicMerlin.

[bleem3]

Perhaps everyone can move forward in Oz now.