i think howard put it best when he sed he is sorry like wen sum1 dies, u say i am sorry for ur loss but he is not apoligetic.. labour said that doesnt make sense but i think its 100% spot on

A genuine apology can only be given if you assume responsibility. Who alive is actually responsible for stealing children? If such a person existed, surely it should be left to them to say sorry and then serve an appropriate gaol sentence.

Stolen" myths #1

Andrew West of the Sydney Morning Herald claims an astonishing coup. He has finally found one of the people who stole Aboriginal children just for racist reasons and now is sorry:

(Ronald) Kitching, now 88, spent 25 years implementing the policy that has led to the official apology the Prime Minister will deliver at the opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

Kitching, claims West:

looks back on much of his career ... with a certain sadness, even anger at a policy that required the removal of part-Aboriginal children from indigenous communities.

But West, like so many reporters caught up in this sorry hysteria, refuses to look at the very facts he transcribes. Where on earth is the evidence of this policy he mentions that required the stealing of black children?

In fact, the only cases Kitching describes are of children he took because they were in danger:


Kitching recalls he recommended the removal of nine children, usually from single black mothers who had been deserted by their childrens white fathers. But he insists that, in all but one case, the mothers agreed - and sometimes urged him - to place their children in institutions or foster care....

A young girl suffering polio and living in remote Jays Creek was sent to a Catholic home on Croker Island near Darwin. I kept seeing the mother having to carry this poor kid around, he recalled.

Her legs were buckled and spindly. She couldnt walk and they realised that, as she grew older, they would have to move her away.

He also found a permanent foster home with a white family for a spastic boy in Molong in western NSW, who had been shunted between other foster families who could not cope with his condition

But the case he most frequently recalls is that of a young mother living in a humpy by a creek outside Warren in western NSW. It was one of those cases where you went back every month to check the conditions, he recalls. One day I walked in and looked across the room and there was this poor little fella sitting in the dirty frypan, flyblown, flies all over him, hadnt been washed in a week. Well, I went at the mum straight away for neglect.

Everything in Kitchings testimony shows he did not steal children just because they were black but because they were in trouble. He is not sorry that the law made him steal children, but that they needed saving:

I would still have done what I did.

This is Wests proof that Kevin Rudds sorry is just. We will be apologising for doing what we dont regret and would do again. We are apologising for saving children, not stealing them.

This is a travesty. As is, of course, such reporting as this.

So today Kevin Rudd said sorry, and apologised for several things including the removal of children from they're parents. Unequivocally. Isn't spin lovely? He'll be showered with praise from an unquestioning press for apologising for stopping children from being raped and abused, from not being fed or clothed. Sorry, we should have left you there.

He's also promised this will mean one system for all. So when everyone goes back to uni in March there won't be a single form asking if you're an Aborigine. There won't be a single additional payout if you're an Aborigine. There won't be a single difference. And pigs will fly.

daniel.. run for prime minister.. seriously!

What a horizontal folk dancing joke, the reaction to Brendan Nelson is appalling.

i'd vote for daniel :)

if krudd manages to somehow get one system for all, that would be great! I remember mom had a nurse at work who manage to prove that she was 1/100th aboriginal and was lauging because of the amount of money/stuff she got from the govt.

Thanks :D

Just listening to Channel 9 to community workers (Les Twentyman and someone else) said the term stolen is just semantics, thus 50,000 people were stolen because they were Aboriginal regardless of whether it was done to protect them, or their parents abandoned them, or if they were genuinely taken for racist reasons.

So we just use the word 'stolen' to be nice. They then went on to say that we should pay compensation if they were genuinely stolen.

This is why this is an issue best left alone: the people leading the debate want to feel good, and simply haven't thought it through. There's a big difference between stolen, abandoned, and protected.

Nothing is better proof of this whole debate being a sorry excuse for a good will, vote winning project than Professor Lowitja O'Donoghue. Former head of ATSIC and someone who worked with Rudd on his speech, she claims to have been stolen. More so, she demands compensation for being stolen. But she also admits that she was abandoned by her father at a Christian missionary. O'Donoghue shouldn't be seeking a sorry or compensation, she should be seeking a "you're welcome" and repaying her debts to society.

I agree, it's wrong that there's no distinction between 'stealing' and taking into custody for legitimate reasons. And isn't an admission of guilt on the Government's behalf really just further cause for those who think they were wronged (even if they were abandoned by parents or orphaned etc) to feel more sorry for themselves and become further separated?

Since work had organised for us to watch the broadcast from the office, I decided to go watch it from Fed Sq and watch it from ground level. After all, we were still watching the same thing, just in different locations ;)

Anyway - photos captured from today's broadcast.

In my humble opinion (IMHO), whether or not we perceive that the government needed to make a public apology or not is moot once you saw the effect it had on the people involved. True that the youth of this current generation were not there to witness or take action in this. With the passion and extremely strong feelings shown on this topic, how can we as the current generation move on from this? What actions can we take day to day to build a better Australia? An Australia that will lead the rest of the nations into the 21st century? Anyway I digress.

Enjoy the photos ;)