Australia Apologizes to Aborigines

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA — Aborigines organized breakfast barbecues in the Outback, schools held assemblies and giant TV screens went up in state capitals today as Australians watched a live broadcast of their 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, lawmakers unanimously adopted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's motion 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.

Aborigines remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group, and Rudd has made improving their lives one of 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 of the "Stolen Generations," 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 reading of Australia's apology and the parliamentary vote was broadcast nationally, and people across the country watched, from Outback breakfasts to school assemblies.