Advance Australia – Sorry

For near 200 years, government in this country, state and federal, considered "full-blood" Aborigines no better than vermin. The "Aboriginal problem", so-called, was confined mostly to what to do about mixed-blood children fathered by white Australians. Mixed-race numbers were increasing as rapidly as full-bloods were vanishing. Which is why, from 1890 to the early 1960s, generations of part-white children were forcibly removed, in all states, from their Aboriginal mothers. SMH

Next Wednesday – Australian time, the federal parliament is going to say sorry to the aborigines for the hideous treatment dished out over the past 200 hundred years of European occupation.

Some of have hoped that the apology, without taking guilt on for behaviour beyond our control, will be a sincere and healing process. Some of us hoped that back in 1965 when we worked so hard to have Aborigines actually recognised as people under the constitution.

For the love of Christ! Make this work as an honest attempt to recognise and deal with the real issues. Not like the 1965 effort which only gave white Australia an excuse to forget the problems. It is a problem we must deal with now!