There is more to leading “this country well into the second decade of the new millennium “than saying ‘sorry’ to a very small and isolated section of society.

“…it would appear our new Prime Minister has created a tsunami style wave of unparallel support that literally swept the nation up in its path for audaciously saying “sorry” to the stolen generation in federal parliament”.

Another wild statement – Hagan’s “it would appear” indicates that even he is not so sure. The narrow polls he refers to are certainly not indicative of the ‘popularity’ of Rudd saying sorry, anymore that the polls are that Hagan has not mentioned showing that 75% of Australians did not believe in the grand gesture. Most people are more interested in practical matters than in meaningless gestures.

The ‘sorry’ palaver was a grand gesture that has already gone from public interest and back to the same old gimme, gimme situation that will be with will us forever.

And John Howard will be, and is, being favourable judged on matters far more important to Australia and all Australians that the silliness of whether or not he said ‘sorry’ to a minority group.

And, Martin Luther King gets a Guernsey – again!

“Sitting with other academics…” suits Stephen Hagan very well. Big on pomp, and nothing on the practicalities of bringing better lives to people he is as remote from as any white man.

It is entirely appropriate that Rudd, the leader of the parliamentary labor party should apologise to aboriginal Australia. It was the Labor Party, after all, that had a sex offender (Bob Collins) in the Senate and in the Cabinet of Hawke & Keating.

So when will we see that far more deserving apology for the unlawful acts done by one of their own? Or is this just another example of "our little secret".

See "Labor's forgotten apology" at http://ianmott.blogspot.com/

For once I must agree with Mr Right. The Aboriginal industry will now proceed to increase demands for perks and lurks far beyond what they already get. When will someone say "Thank you" for arranging preferential entry to university, for the free education available, for the free public health care available, for stopping tribal warfare and samll inter-tribal genocides, for ending the stupid superstitions that led to oppression of females in "natural" aboriginal communities and as reported by observers such as Sir Hubert Wilkins, for the free housing, for the welfare that means unemployed aboriginals do not starve, for inventing and supplying antibiotics to prevent women from dying in childbirth from sepiticaemia. It is very much a case of, "The evil that men lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones". Contacts between contrasting cultures always bring conflict and suffering. But oftentimes later generations benefit. And it's about time THAT was appreciated. Otherwise this Irishman and Scotsman wants compensation from the English for far greater wrongs done for longer to my ancestors than were ever done to the Australian Aborigines. And no, I am not "anti-Aboriginal", just totally irritated by this constant abuse of "whitey". We are not all bad. We are woefully human, just like the Australian Aborigines.

I agree, Stephen, Kevin Rudd's Sorry speech will go down as one of the finest moments in Australia's parliamentary history. His words moved the nation in a way that few have before or since.

The mean-spirited posters here are not representative of the mainstream response to Rudd's speech. The fact that his approval rating as preferred Prime Minister soared to an unprecedented 70% soon after the speech says it all really.

I'd need to know the source of the poll quoted by Mr Right and the wording of the question before I accepted his claim that "75% of Australians did not believe in the grand gesture."

As pointed out by Stephen, it is very instructive that so many who were sceptical or uninterested in the lead-up to the speech actually changed their minds once they'd heard it delivered. It just goes to show the power of good oratory and strong leadership. And hopefully the results of the action on the ground during Rudd's term will match the magnanimity of his words.

I enjoyed this article Stephen and agreed with every word though I was a little disappointed in the last part of it.

"Unfortunately for the offender the blow was negligible and as a recipient of several faster and harder blows to the head he was unflatteringly rendered horizontal on the bar room floor."

I found this sentence a little disconcerting on several fronts, not least of which being the obscure way you informed the reader that your nephew hit back. I know it would be difficult to do in the face of such blatant racist abuse but I feel the most admirable response, and the one we all have to work toward if relations between us are ever to heal, would have been to turn and walk away.

Whilst I disagre with anything Hagen has to say as an Indigenous person, Henry the idiot is well out of order. What industry are you talking about? the problem with people like you is that you are happy to steal murder and remove the rights of others but if they fight back you winge.

Why arn't you complaining about the farmers in this country recieving handouts and subsidies for land that is not only not theirs but is unsustainable. Why because these idiots have destroyed it with poor farming practices and the destruction of our water ways.

I have no interest in the apology but would be happy to acept a thank you. If not for the theft of my land and the destruction of my rights which you benefited from personally not to mention Indigenous people's service during wars which we recieved no recogniotion for or money, you and your family would not exist and probly would still be living in england or other dump.

I don't believe my generation should have to pay taxes for pensioners or farmers, but each year my business gets taxed to support them so why shouldn't you who have most benefited by our land pay you way for a change.

Mr Rudd's speech was polished while Dr Nelson's speech was far more truthful.

Do at least TRY to be a little less predictable Runner.

Yindin, funnily enough we are both human beings with very similar aspirations. And human beings have been migrating around the world ever since we ALL came out of Africa somewhere between about 70,000 and 50, 000 years ago. No-one owns land, we live on it for a short while and then die. You are right about some farmers stuffing up the land. And some folk have said that the Australian Aborigines have also played their part, with fire, in changing it from what it used to be. I no more condone violence or racist abuse than do you, but it's about time some Australians stopped whingeing about other Australians and got on with making the place work for the benefit of ALL. The end of article boasts about what is nothing but tribal warfare between Australians of European origin and Australians of Aboriginal origin. WHAT is the point of that? Last time I was insulted by a racist Aboriginal drunk in Cairns I just kept walking.Even though he spat at me. No point in causing bother. He was as stupid and ignorant as the white trash referred to in the article. However, I for one am tired of those who, like it seems the author, make a living out of being professionally oppressed after having benefitted markedly from "white" technology, such as spectacles and university degrees. Good luck to you; we all need it.

"white" technology,

mmm,,,an interesting and grand assertion.

and it a mark of every bolted on redneck to make up stories about 'drunken Aborigines' just to justify their own racism...don't you get tired of telling big porkies like that?

HenryVIII: thanks? for providing the services that are expected of any government? and "white techology" and "drunken Aboriginals"? come on...

anyway, i don't share hagan's enthusiasm for the apology. its yet another popular speech from rudd but essentially hollow without any reparations, not to mention far too late to be that important when there are much more pressing issues for aboriginal communities.

Yes, Rudd's speach was realy something.

Fotrunately the remote was close, & I could change the channel, before I threw up.

For my money, Keating's was the better speech - if only he'd said sorry as well.

Then all the racists would have come out from under their rocks a whole lot earlier, and we could have started this painful process before the end of the 20th century. Given the anti-Aboriginal vitriol expressed by a hateful minority in the wake of Rudd's historic apology, it's useful to draw them out into the open - if only so the rest of us are aware of how far we have to go on the road to reconciliation.

I suppose there will always be an intransigent racist minority in Australia who refuse to acknowledge past and current injustice towards Aboriginal people, and who will begrudge any concrete efforts to achieve real equality and reconciliation. Hopefully, as the rest of us get on with it they will retreat once again into the political wasteland where they belong.

CJ Morgan,

I agree that Keating's speech was better and also with your other observations.

It's been weeks now and the world hasn't come to an end.

It's a shame that rare fleeting moment of national unity could not have lasted a little longer, but it does give some hope for what we could achieve as a society under the right circumstances.

Stephen, You being involved and an influence in the Education system, As a concerned member of the Australian Aboriginal Community, (me) (AAC?), what are your views, and would you consider a comment on my concerns, as stated by me, re the article, Offering Educational Opportunities. 21/2/08 ? Also on Martin Luther King. Also,any of my comments directed at you and the rest of the, 'Aboriginal Victim Industry'!?!?

Funny how if one asks questions of, raises issues about or simply disagrees with the beliefs of those who see themselves as tolerant and caring, one gets roundly abused as racist, red-neck, anti-whatever race or creed is being discussed etc. Well, here's another emetic to help purge your souls of their vitriol.

Rainier-the drunk who accosted me in Cairns, was abusive, spat at me, did so because I had white skin, and was real and Aboriginal. It's neither racist to state the truth, nor a lie, and I put him in the same category as the white trash who abused Hagan's wantoks. I don't really care who he was, or what colour his skin was, or who his parents were. He had bad manners, and it wasn't worth dealing with violently, as was the case for Hagan's nephews who chose to pick a fight with similar idiots who had white skins.

If I were to say sorry, then I would have to leave, otherwise it would be meaningless. So, no sorry. I have as much right to live anywhere I choose as anyone else; the fact that we erect tribal boundaries merely makes that right hard to enforce in a number of countries. In addition, given the growing world population since whenever, it is inevitable that Australia would have been invaded sometime by someone with bigger guns than the Australian Aborigines, and perhaps it's good job it wasn't the Japanese who have yet to say sorry for exterminating 19 000 000 Chinese as deliberate policy.

White technology? Well, maybe the Chinese invented spectacles and Marco Polo stole the idea. Stephen Hagan appears to be wearing them, presumably because he benefits from them. So maybe he is benefitting from Chinese technology, and should say thank you to the Chinese. Or perhaps to Marco Polo. He certainly looks well-fed and well-clothed and isn't living on a bush diet.

Your waxing on about your claim to being "colour blind” fails to take account of the contingent facts of racial inequality and disadvantage in our present society.

Your questioning of Mr Hagan right to be technogically advantaged and not a real "Aboriginal" because you think he does not eat bush tucker is not worth commenting on.

A wonderful illustration of someone using abstract liberalism, racial naturalisation, cultural racism and the deliberate minimisation of racism all to rationalise an abstract form of liberalism that in reality has never really understood racism beyond its most basic articulations and manifestations.

Congratulations!

Rainier, your bigotry is still showing. Mr Hagan can do what he pleases with whatever technology is available to him, as long as it is legal. All I said was that he has benfitted from non-indigenous technology and perhaps he should be grateful for it, just as I am for the technological benefits I have received from my forebears. What is racist or "anti-Aboriginal " about that? Your string of isms sounds like a polemic from Joe Stalin against someone who doesn't fit the party line of the day. There are none so bigotted as those who profess the moral high ground.

Hey Stephen,

I agree it was a quality speech and my family and I were very fortunate to have been able to listen and view it from within the Great Hall at parliament house.

I had decided late in the peace that it was an occasion I didn't want my children to miss so we hit the road from country Victoria and made our way up the day before.

I think the hall seats about 1000 people and there were probably half as many again that were standing both up and down stairs. We were lucky to get in, lining up with a quiet but good humoured mix of indigenous and non-indigenous people.

One felt a sense of expectation from the crowd inside but there was also a feeling of real nervousness. It did not take long into Mr Rudd's speech before a palatable sense of relief mixed with quiet joy seemed to engulf us and those around us.

Certainly for me there was also a real sense of pride as an Australian. I had seen the need for my kids to experience a ‘small c' christian act by our nation showing compassion and contrition for past and present wrongs and here it was.

Mr Nelson's speech had the opportunity to cement this act but unfortunately it didn't. I was glad my family were able to experience the hurt his words caused for many in the crowd. Indeed my own wife was in tears, not of rage she explained, but of disappointment.

My children will be part of the next generation whose actions and attitudes will help shape the way Australia approaches the challenges it faces dealing with indigenous issues. They are part of my hope for a better country.

Henry

Puleeze! Your basic assertion was the Stephen Hagan's use of technology was not aligned with what you consider to be authentically 'Aboriginal' and that using this technology (as i am here) is somehow a benefit that he (and I ) derived from you.

I don't know who you are, but i do know what you are. I hope that you have the guts to face up to what you are one day soon.