Trent W. Buck <trentbuck@gmail.com> wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
It was also controversial to apologise for the Stolen Generation. Before it happened right-wing people I knew were predicting all sorts of bad things, but nothing bad happened at all. Kevin Rudd did the right thing and made Australia a better place for EVERYONE. Kevin Rudd will go down in history as someone who did the right thing to reduce the problems of racism in Australia.
I agree it was a worthwhile and valuable move in the right direction. The excuse by opponents was that it would open the way to liability on the part of the Commonwealth government. (No, they didn't cite precedent or explain the legal basis of that claim.)
Being a leftie pinko nutter, I never understood how it could be anything BUT a good idea.
Agreed.
A glance at the demographic disparities in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian#Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian#Education http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian#Employment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian#Health http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian#Crime_and_imprisonment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australian#Substance_abuse suggests that an apology alone isn't going to cut it.
Correct. There's much more that needs to be done. What exactly should be done is a complicated policy question on which I don't have much insight to offer.