Sorry is such an easy word to say, but if you havent been in a situation of abuse and neglect. Then its understandable that Sorry is a hard word for you.

Thanks for proving my case:

Every extra per-capita migrant coming here is undermining our environment, time&respect for each other and the chance for a new age of aboriginal/whiteman cooperation & understanding.

IMMIGRATION MUST CEASE NOW well before PEAKOIL.

Speaking on behalf of all australian's and especially aborigines: We need extra migrants & their gas-guzzling SUVs in this country like we need a hole in the head.

I do not want anyone to apologise on my behalf for something I had no part in. They have no moral or legal right to do that. I am insulted by the suggestion that anyone believes they have a right to demand an apology or offer oneon my behalf.
If a wrong is done then the apology must come from the perpetrator and it must be offered to the person or people to whom the wrong was done. It cannot and should not be offered or accepted by descendants of either group. There has to be a point at which these things stop and that point has passed.
The whole 'sorry' business is not about being sorry or apologising. It is about politics. It allows some individuals to feed on media attention. If an apology was offered then they would find fault with it or demand more because they have become dependent on this issue just as outspoken 'activists' in other areas are dependent. It
is a way of life for some people and they would be lost without their 'problem'.

Communicat:

Australia as a nation is bigger than you or I. It also has a history that extends back far beyond our descendents, and far beyond even the first Indigenous Australians. It is a piece of land that has been around for millions of years and has seen a lot.

Australia isn't just the present. It is not just the people who live in her today. It is an amalgamation of the past and the present.

The country - as a nation of both past and present - should recognise its mistakes, apologise for the damage and hurt that echoes throughout generations of a culture that has been displaced - and get on with the healing process.

You're right, Sorry IS political. John Howard made it that way because of his arrogance and his hubris. It's a simple word that would mean so much to so many. Say it and get it out of the way so the country can move on.

Another example of Howards' divisive and exclusive legacy.

LET'S take the semantics out of this.I believe that forgiveness does more for the giver than it does for the perpetrator who is held responsible for a crime and now forgiven.As an Australian who went to school with aboriginals in North Queensland who lived in kero tin shacks on the river bank, as kids they were our equals, but the white adults, I was to realise when older, considered we whites as superior types of beings.The "white Australia" policy was universally supported by most whites then on the assumption that mixed races were likely to be deficient in intelligence to "civilised anglo/saxons".So I know, I personally, am not being held responsible for the crimes done to indiginees in Australia's history.But, as a polite and well meant gesture, saying SORRY does help -me- right the wrong that was done and I feel happy to help the present generation however I can.I am a citizen and MY AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT MUST APOLOGISE OR I WILL NOT SUPPORT IT!

SAYING SORRY !

Though not a labor voter, but just a retired old Cockie who in the wheatbelt district of Dalwallinu, in my young days nearly 150 K’s across and taking in the goldmining town of Paynes Find, had much to do with people of the Wongi and Yamagee tribes, finding them as gracious as or better as many white persons.

It hurts much in my ageing years to have my sons and their sons treating today’s Aborigines like low life, mostly caused I believe by Howard's political officialdom saying that we owe no apology to the Aborigines for occupying their homelands.

Though not a Labor voter, one does not only thank Kevin Rudd, our new PM for promising a declaration of apology in the coming days, but also Malcolm Turnbull, who has had the decency and commonsense to do
what Canada in the last few years - to ask forgiveness of the Canadian Indigines.

In an earlier Post, and as a qualified historian regarding WA history, did report how angry and desperate I felt to write how Midgericoo the ageing father of the exceedingly bright and popular Yagan was simply depicted in colonial reports as shot at 20 paces out side the Perthtown barracks.

Indeed, it has been so long, one could go on to suggest that as also has been suggested by a Roman Catholic Padre that following Canada we could offer our natives permanent representation in our Parliament similar also to Canada - and of course figures in New Zealand, but was part of an official Armistice with the Maories.

As having a natural bent for all types of history, and still regarded in our group as a portrayer of unecessary Old Pap stuff, might conclude that if the title also includes Left Wing Lunacy, might say the way some of our beaten Libs are still carrying on, must say I am now very proud to be among, what historians do call part of the Avant Garde, or the heralders
of coming change, despite the often raggedy arsed camp followers.