The Appology
At the first session of the 2008 Federal Parliament on 13 February 2008 the new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an official apology to the Stolen Generations.
The ‘Stolen Generations’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) people who were forcibly taken from their families by the government. It was the official policy of the Australian Government to remove Indigenous children from their families from 1909 to 1969.
The apology was made for what the Australian Government had done in the past and to express regret for the pain and suffering it had caused Indigenous people. Even though the practice of removing children has now ended the current Prime Minister apologised as the representative of the government.
Overseas, apologies had also been offered to other Indigenous peoples by their governments for past treatment. In Canada, for example, the government in 1998 told the local Aboriginal people that it was “deeply sorry” for the physical and sexual abuse suffered by children taken away from their parents and housed in special Christian boarding schools called ‘residential schools’. In 2008 the Canadian Prime Minister again apologised, when he announced a financial compensation fund for the victims and their families.
Every other Australian state and territory leader had already apologised in the late 1990s, when details of what happened to Australian Indigenous children when they were taken were uncovered in the 1997 ‘Bringing Them Home’ report. I truley Respect Kevin Rudd for doing so.
The ‘Stolen Generations’ refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) people who were forcibly taken from their families by the government. It was the official policy of the Australian Government to remove Indigenous children from their families from 1909 to 1969.
The apology was made for what the Australian Government had done in the past and to express regret for the pain and suffering it had caused Indigenous people. Even though the practice of removing children has now ended the current Prime Minister apologised as the representative of the government.
Overseas, apologies had also been offered to other Indigenous peoples by their governments for past treatment. In Canada, for example, the government in 1998 told the local Aboriginal people that it was “deeply sorry” for the physical and sexual abuse suffered by children taken away from their parents and housed in special Christian boarding schools called ‘residential schools’. In 2008 the Canadian Prime Minister again apologised, when he announced a financial compensation fund for the victims and their families.
Every other Australian state and territory leader had already apologised in the late 1990s, when details of what happened to Australian Indigenous children when they were taken were uncovered in the 1997 ‘Bringing Them Home’ report. I truley Respect Kevin Rudd for doing so.