Now That Australia Admits To Screwing Them, Sorry Needs To Be Followed With Financial Compensation
Australia apologized on Wednesday for the historic mistreatment of Aborigines in a move indigenous leaders said would help end generations of pain.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament that past policies of assimilation, under which aboriginal children were taken from their families to be brought up in white households, were a stain on the nation's soul.
"Today, the parliament has come together to right a great wrong," Rudd said.
"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians."
The parliamentary apology comes 11 years after a major report into past assimilation policies found between one in three and one in 10 aboriginal children had been taken from their families between 1910 and 1970. [CNN]