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.