Australian PM hopes apology will open new era for Aborigines
CANBERRA (AFP) — Australia's new prime minister aims to launch a fresh era in his country's often-fraught race relations Wednesday with an apology for the "indignity and degradation" suffered by Aborigines.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signalled a shift in mood in Canberra Tuesday when he invited Aboriginal elders to stage a welcome ceremony for his centre-left government, the first such event in the parliament's history.
He followed up by releasing the much-anticipated text of the formal apology to Aborigines he will deliver to parliament Wednesday, going much further than the highly qualified statement initially expected.
The apology is being viewed as a watershed in Australia, with major television networks airing it live and huge screens being erected in major cities to allow crowds to watch as it happens.
Rudd's text refers to the "past mistreatment" of all Aborigines, not just the "Stolen Generations" of children forcibly removed from their families, who provided the initial impetus for the apology.
"We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," Rudd will say in parliament, according to the text.
He also singles out the Stolen Generations, mostly mixed-race children, who were taken from their families up until the 1970s in a bid to assimilate them into white society.
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry," Rudd will say.
"To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
"For the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."
Labor leader Rudd's use of the word "sorry" carries a special resonance for Aborigines after the prime minister's conservative predecessor John Howard steadfastly refused to utter it during his 11 years in power.
Rudd's first parliamentary session since his landslide win over Howard last November began with Matilda House-Williams, an elder of Canberra's Ngambri tribe, welcoming lawmakers to her clan's ancestral lands.
Australia's Aboriginal and colonial history were both on display as politicians were welcomed by House-Williams barefoot and clad in a possum-fur cape, then formally sworn-in by the governor-general, Queen Elizabeth II's representative in the country.
"Today we begin with one small step to set right the wrongs of the past," Rudd said at the welcoming ceremony, which he said would become a new parliamentary tradition.
He will be joined by former prime ministers including Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser for the apology Wednesday. Howard has said he will not attend.
While Aboriginal leaders have welcomed the long-awaited apology, many say there is still a long way to go to redress the injustices committed during 220 years of white settlement in Australia.
The 470,000 Aborigines in Australia's 20-million-strong population remain the country's most impoverished community, with life expectancy more than 17 years lower than the national average.
They suffer from higher rates of imprisonment, heart disease, infant mortality and domestic violence.
The mixed feelings were evident at a rally staged Tuesday just down the hill from parliament, where about 1,000 Aborigines had gathered in Canberra both for the apology and to protest at some ongoing government policies.
Some of them had travelled 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) in buses from isolated Outback communities to protest at a controversial plan to send police backed by troops into communities in the Northern Territory in a bid to contain spiralling social problems.
Aboriginal social worker Will Smith said the apology would help bring blacks and whites together, while activist Greg Entock said the victims of Stolen Generations policies deserved financial compensation, a measure Rudd has ruled out.
