I’m sorry, you’re sorry, we’re all sorry.

This week we saw another monumentous day in Australia’s history. Our new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an official apology on behalf of Parliament for the systematic removal of Aboriginal and mixed race children from their families from 1910 to the early 1970s. This is a huge step forward for this country, which has an astonishingly large gap between the quality of life of its indigenous peoples and immigrant settlers. Here is the official apology:



This is a carefully-worded but still emotive and respectful speech, which goes way way ahead of anything the previous Prime Minister John Howard would have been prepared to do (he famously refused to say sorry). But what impressed me more was Kevin Rudd’s own, more personal speech that followed. Here he talked about people he had met, their own stories, and how it had affected him emotionally. He talked about how one of the key Aussie values is that everyone can ‘have a fair go’, and that successive parliaments had robbed these people of that basic human right. He said what so many people in this nation feel – that as an immigrant nation (he came to Australia as a baby) we are so lucky to be living in this beautiful land, and we need to acknowledge the mistreatment of the traditional owners of this land and move forward in a spirit of reconciliation and partnership.

I spent the morning in a drizzly Martin Place watching the Apology on a big screen. The emotional impact of this event did not escape anyone in the city, and the rain did not dampen anyone’s spirits as we felt buoyant on the possibilities of the future. Tears fell down everyone’s cheeks, cheers were raised when the word ‘sorry’ left Mr Rudd’s lips, and a sense of community was felt by all, city workers, members of the Stolen Generation, passers by, everyone.

On facebook another revolution was occurring! My friends in Australia all changed their status’ to ‘…is sorry’, to show their respect for and acknowledgement of the event. I love it when events such as these inspire such earnest support in the unlikeliest of places.




We will see what this means for the future: Kevin Rudd has pledged a cross-party ‘war cabinet’ to close the gap, which I hope for his and this country’s sake is successful. A great day and a beautiful sentiment.