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Aborigines welcome 'new era of indigenous relations'
Aboriginal leaders welcomed yesterday a new era of indigenous relations in Australia with a government that plans to acknowledge their traditional land ownership and apologise for past injustices.
- AP
- Published: 00:52 February 1, 2008
Canberra: Aboriginal leaders welcomed yesterday a new era of indigenous relations in Australia with a government that plans to acknowledge their traditional land ownership and apologise for past injustices.
For the first time in Parliament's 107-year-old history, the Ngunnawal tribe, traditional owner of the national capital, Canberra, has been asked to welcome lawmakers at their first session on February 12 since the centre-left Labor Party won elections in November.
"It's a great privilege and honour," said Matilda House, an Aboriginal elder who will give a speech welcoming the lawmakers on behalf of the tribe. "I think it's just a marvellous thing."
The Ngunnawal have no official title to the land, but their participation in the opening ceremony underscores a new government attitude that Aborigines deserve special respect as Australia's original inhabitants.
Motion
The first act of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's new government will be to ask Parliament on February 13 to pass a motion apologising for past policies of removing mostly mixed-race children from Aboriginal mothers in a bid to make them grow up like white Australians.
A national inquiry into the so-called "stolen generations" found in 1997 that many children taken from their families suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from the loss of family and culture, and recommended that Parliament apologise. Former Prime Minister John Howard had long refused to apologise, arguing that his government should not be held responsible for the policies of former officials.
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