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Australia Apologizes to Aborigines
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
CANBERRA, Australia -- Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues Wednesday in
Outback communities, giant TV screens went up in state capitals, and schools
held assemblies that allowed students to watch the telecast of Australia's
government apologizing for policies that degraded its indigenous people.
In a historic parliamentary vote that supporters said would open a new
chapter in race relations in the country, lawmakers unanimously adopted
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's motion to apologize on behalf of all
Australians.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and
governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these
our fellow Australians," Rudd said in Parliament, reading from the motion.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information.
AP's earlier story is below.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) _ Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues in
Outback communities, giant TV screens went up in state capitals, and schools
planned assemblies so students can watch the telecast of Australia's
government apologizing for policies that degraded its indigenous people.
As Parliment convened Wednesday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Prime put forth a
motion asking lawmakers to formally apologize for past policies that
"inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss" on Australia's indigenous
people.
A vote was due to take place on the motion soon after it was read by Rudd,
and was certain to pass because it has the support of the government and the
major opposition parties.
Aborigines remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group, and
Rudd has made improving their lives one of his government's top priorities.
As part of that campaign, Aborigines were invited for the first time to give
a traditional welcome Tuesday at the official opening of the Parliament
session _ symbolic recognition that the land on which the capital was built
was taken from Aborigines without compensation.
The apology is directed at tens of thousands of Aborigines who were forcibly
taken from their families as children under now abandoned assimilation
policies.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and
governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these
our fellow Australians," the apology motion says.
"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the
breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and
a proud culture, we say sorry."
The apology, which was certain to be passed since both Rudd's governing
Labor Party and the main opposition parties support it, ends years of
divisive debate and a decade of refusals by the previous conservative
government that lost November's elections.
It places Australia among a handful of nations that have offered official
apologies to oppressed minorities, including Canada's 1998 apology to its
native peoples, South Africa's 1992 expression of regret for apartheid and
the U.S. Congress' 1988 law apologizing to Japanese-Americans for their
internment during World War II.
The reading of Australia's apology and the parliamentary vote was being
broadcast nationally, and people across the country made plans for communal
watching, from the Outback breakfasts to the school assemblies.
Giant television screens were erected outside Parliament House in Canberra
for hundreds of people who could not fit inside. Screens were also set up in
parks and other public places in Sydney and other state capitals.
Rudd's motion offered "a new page in the history of our great continent" and
"a future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past
must never, never happen again."
Aborigines lived mostly as hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years
before British colonial settlers landed at what is now Sydney in 1788.
Today, there are about 450,000 Aborigines in Australia's population of 21
million. They are the country's poorest group, with the highest rates of
jailing, unemployment and illiteracy. Their life expectancy is 17 years
shorter than other Australians.
The debate about an apology was spurred by a government inquiry into
policies that from 1910 until the 1970s resulted in 100,000 mostly
mixed-blood Aboriginal children being taken from their parents under state
and federal laws based on a premise that Aborigines were dying out.
Most were deeply traumatized by the loss of their families and culture, the
inquiry concluded, naming them the "Stolen Generations." Its 1997 report
recommended a formal apology and reparations for the victims.
Rudd ruled out compensation _ a stance that helped secure support for the
apology among the many Australians who believe they should not be held
responsible for past policies, no matter how flawed.
He pledges instead to lift the living standards of all Aborigines, and on
Tuesday outlined bold targets for cutting infant mortality, illiteracy and
early death rates among indigenous people within a decade.
Aboriginal leaders generally welcomed Rudd's apology, though some said it
was empty rhetoric without addressing the issue of compensation.
Noel Pearson, a respected Aborigine leader from Queensland state, wrote in
The Australian newspaper on Tuesday that offering an apology without
compensation meant: "Blackfellas will get the words, the whitefellas keep
the money."
Marcia Langton, an Aborigine academic at the University of Melbourne, also
said the question of compensation must be addressed, but celebrated the
apology as a huge step forward.
"I think that it's impossible to feel any kind of cynicism at all, if you
can understand how much it means to people who have lived through these
events and been removed from their families," she told Australian
Broadcasting Corp.
Michael Mansell, spokesman for the rights group the National Aboriginal
Alliance, said the word "sorry" was one that "Stolen Generation members will
be very relieved is finally being used."
Mansell, who has urged the government to establish an $880 million
compensation fund, said he still hoped Rudd would be open to the idea.
Bob Brown, leader of the minority Greens party, said he would try to have
Rudd's motion amended in the Senate to include a commitment to paying
compensation. But the amendment was likely to be rejected by majority
parties, and Brown said he would not pursue it further.
Tony Abbott, the indigenous affairs spokesman for the main opposition
coalition, said his bloc had reversed its previous objection to the apology
in part because Rudd promised there would be no compensation.
"As far as the opposition is concerned, this apology creates no new rights
or entitlements. We are guaranteed that by the prime minister," Abbott said.
Australia Apologizes to Aborigines
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
CANBERRA, Australia -- Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues Wednesday in
Outback communities, giant TV screens went up in state capitals, and schools
held assemblies that allowed students to watch the telecast of Australia's
government apologizing for policies that degraded its indigenous people.
In a historic parliamentary vote that supporters said would open a new
chapter in race relations in the country, lawmakers unanimously adopted
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's motion to apologize on behalf of all
Australians.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and
governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these
our fellow Australians," Rudd said in Parliament, reading from the motion.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information.
AP's earlier story is below.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) _ Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues in
Outback communities, giant TV screens went up in state capitals, and schools
planned assemblies so students can watch the telecast of Australia's
government apologizing for policies that degraded its indigenous people.
As Parliment convened Wednesday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Prime put forth a
motion asking lawmakers to formally apologize for past policies that
"inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss" on Australia's indigenous
people.
A vote was due to take place on the motion soon after it was read by Rudd,
and was certain to pass because it has the support of the government and the
major opposition parties.
Aborigines remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group, and
Rudd has made improving their lives one of his government's top priorities.
As part of that campaign, Aborigines were invited for the first time to give
a traditional welcome Tuesday at the official opening of the Parliament
session _ symbolic recognition that the land on which the capital was built
was taken from Aborigines without compensation.
The apology is directed at tens of thousands of Aborigines who were forcibly
taken from their families as children under now abandoned assimilation
policies.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and
governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these
our fellow Australians," the apology motion says.
"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the
breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
"And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and
a proud culture, we say sorry."
The apology, which was certain to be passed since both Rudd's governing
Labor Party and the main opposition parties support it, ends years of
divisive debate and a decade of refusals by the previous conservative
government that lost November's elections.
It places Australia among a handful of nations that have offered official
apologies to oppressed minorities, including Canada's 1998 apology to its
native peoples, South Africa's 1992 expression of regret for apartheid and
the U.S. Congress' 1988 law apologizing to Japanese-Americans for their
internment during World War II.
The reading of Australia's apology and the parliamentary vote was being
broadcast nationally, and people across the country made plans for communal
watching, from the Outback breakfasts to the school assemblies.
Giant television screens were erected outside Parliament House in Canberra
for hundreds of people who could not fit inside. Screens were also set up in
parks and other public places in Sydney and other state capitals.
Rudd's motion offered "a new page in the history of our great continent" and
"a future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past
must never, never happen again."
Aborigines lived mostly as hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years
before British colonial settlers landed at what is now Sydney in 1788.
Today, there are about 450,000 Aborigines in Australia's population of 21
million. They are the country's poorest group, with the highest rates of
jailing, unemployment and illiteracy. Their life expectancy is 17 years
shorter than other Australians.
The debate about an apology was spurred by a government inquiry into
policies that from 1910 until the 1970s resulted in 100,000 mostly
mixed-blood Aboriginal children being taken from their parents under state
and federal laws based on a premise that Aborigines were dying out.
Most were deeply traumatized by the loss of their families and culture, the
inquiry concluded, naming them the "Stolen Generations." Its 1997 report
recommended a formal apology and reparations for the victims.
Rudd ruled out compensation _ a stance that helped secure support for the
apology among the many Australians who believe they should not be held
responsible for past policies, no matter how flawed.
He pledges instead to lift the living standards of all Aborigines, and on
Tuesday outlined bold targets for cutting infant mortality, illiteracy and
early death rates among indigenous people within a decade.
Aboriginal leaders generally welcomed Rudd's apology, though some said it
was empty rhetoric without addressing the issue of compensation.
Noel Pearson, a respected Aborigine leader from Queensland state, wrote in
The Australian newspaper on Tuesday that offering an apology without
compensation meant: "Blackfellas will get the words, the whitefellas keep
the money."
Marcia Langton, an Aborigine academic at the University of Melbourne, also
said the question of compensation must be addressed, but celebrated the
apology as a huge step forward.
"I think that it's impossible to feel any kind of cynicism at all, if you
can understand how much it means to people who have lived through these
events and been removed from their families," she told Australian
Broadcasting Corp.
Michael Mansell, spokesman for the rights group the National Aboriginal
Alliance, said the word "sorry" was one that "Stolen Generation members will
be very relieved is finally being used."
Mansell, who has urged the government to establish an $880 million
compensation fund, said he still hoped Rudd would be open to the idea.
Bob Brown, leader of the minority Greens party, said he would try to have
Rudd's motion amended in the Senate to include a commitment to paying
compensation. But the amendment was likely to be rejected by majority
parties, and Brown said he would not pursue it further.
Tony Abbott, the indigenous affairs spokesman for the main opposition
coalition, said his bloc had reversed its previous objection to the apology
in part because Rudd promised there would be no compensation.
"As far as the opposition is concerned, this apology creates no new rights
or entitlements. We are guaranteed that by the prime minister," Abbott said.
