Government to apologise to Aborigines
January 31, 2008
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Australia's new government has announced that its first act will be an apology for the historic treatment of the country's first inhabitants.
New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that the first business of the new Parliament, when it convenes on February 12th, will be a formal apology for past injustices.
Labor's Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the apology is 'the first, necessary step to move forward from the past'.
Survival recently called for a radical overhaul of the previous government’s controversial emergency programme in the Northern Territory, which was widely condemned by Aboriginal organisations, and a speeding up of the process by which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can secure native title to their lands.
