Hello Again, Sydney

One Sydney-sider's experiences moving back to Sydney after a long absence overseas.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

One word



"To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification."

Yesterday our Prime Minister stood in parliament and said sorry to the Stolen Generations. It was an important moment for Australia, and for the first time in a long time I felt like as a country we were taking a step in the right direction.

Obviously, I'm not getting carried away yet - the actual work still has to be done. But at least we've got a starting point. And now that it has been said it seems so simple. You wonder why our "leaders" refused to say it for so long. You also realise how completely you'd given up on politicians to do anything positive. And maybe, just maybe, you dare to dream that Australia might have turned a corner.

Then you go and have a look at the comments on the websites, under the story in various places, and you see there are many people who feel the exact opposite. Or they feel that it's right to say sorry, but... On the ABC website I see it took about three minutes for someone to raise the topic of monetary compensation, then some lawyer types waded in with their warnings of the flood of law suits to come, and then people started bleating about how we'll have to pay more taxes. More of our money! It baffles me that some people just can't see the world in any other terms than dollars. (Is that what it is? I really don't get it.) And you realise that we haven't turned the corner, not by a long shot.

But for the moment, I think it's time to be positive and look at how we can move forwards with the promise. And I guess, as well as offering an apology specifically to the Stolen Generations, we can hope to one day build a more open relationship between all Australians, and finally glean some knowledge and wisdom about this country from the people who've lived here for tens of thousands of years. You reckon they just might know a thing or two worth learning, and I don't mean about bush tucker. Then we might truly be a country to rave about, and not just another "strong competitor in a global market".

If you've got the time, you could do a lot worse than read the full transcript of Kevin Rudd's speech. Hear hear.

2 Comments:

At 11:34 am, Blogger Becky Willis Motew said...

Wish that could happen here, Mark.

Be glad.

b

 
At 6:43 am, Blogger Mark said...

It can, b. It will. Be patient!

 

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