The Null Device

Australia says sorry

Keeping his promise, Australian PM Kevin Rudd officially apologises to Aborigines on behalf of the Australian nation; the apology was delivered at a special parliamentary session, which was (for the first time) opened with an Aboriginal ceremony, rather than the traditional English one usually used. Former PM John Howard, the hard-right nationalist who steadfastly refused to apologise and sent the rottweilers in to hunt down anyone promulgating a "politically correct black-armband view of history", was nowhere to be seen, though the current opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, joined in the apology, though reportedly caused outrage when adding in his speech that the present generation is not guilty. (That can't be good for his career, alienating both sides and all.)

Australia's Aborigines are split on the apology; by reports, most welcome it as a positive sign, though some say that an apology without reparations is not good enough, as talk is cheap; in the words of one, "the blackfella gets the words, the whitefella keeps the money".

There are 3 comments on "Australia says sorry":

Posted by: datakid Wed Feb 13 20:21:54 2008

I didn't make the ceremony myself, but I heard later that Brendan Nelson also called on the memory of the diggers of Gallipoli, how this is relevant fails me. Apparently in Melbourne town people turned their back on (the image of) him (on the big screen) in Federation Square, and eventually someone just pulled the plug and the screen went dead. lols.

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org/acb/ Wed Feb 13 21:29:24 2008

Epic fail.

Posted by: gjw http://plastic.tumblr.com Thu Feb 14 14:05:47 2008

Yeah, I think the references to diggers was trying to make some point about how that saintly generation could never do any wrong, were always acting out of the kindness of their hearts, all that. His speech was more an apology to elements within the Liberal party than an apology to the stolen generations, and I think he's ashamed for having had to make it. Unforgivable, however, are the likes of other Liberal MPs, Wilson Tuckey and a handful of others who boycotted the sitting, and Chris Pearce, who spent the speech reading a magazine, then refused to stand and applaud Kevin Rudd when the rest of his colleagues did. Effete arseholes.