"SORRY" - ONE WORD HEARD ACROSS AUSTRALIA

(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2008 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3).

From The Guardian, weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia

The Central Committee Executive of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) welcomes the apology by Prime Minister Rudd to the Stolen Generations in Federal Parliament on February 13. The CPA sees this as a first step towards compensation, restoration of stolen wages, democratic election of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisation and land rights, on the basis of genuine consultation and co-operation.

     The "sorry statement" was a significant moment in Australian history which was welcomed with joy and tears by very many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and their supporters around Australia. This was their victory.

     Prime Minister Rudd was responding to an overwhelming demand, expressed in the intense and broad struggle which swept him and the Labor Party to power in last November's federal election.

     Kevin Rudd said: It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history.

     And later he stressed that nothing concrete can be achieved without an absolute premium on respect, cooperation...

     These are excellent principles. The National Aboriginal Alliance called in November last year for the establishment of a representative Aboriginal voice at the national level.

     But the Rudd Government's commitment to these principles cannot be trusted while his government continues to support police and soldiers occupying Northern Territory Aboriginal communities and the continuing theft of Aboriginal title to their lands and resources.

     Rudd's commitments will remain empty promises until people power forces real change.

     The Prime Minister spoke of the need to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

     He set targets: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in overall life expectancy.

     Central to the fulfilment of these aims is the possession by Aboriginal communities of communal and inalienable title to their land, including the minerals and other natural resources.

     Conservative forces will continue to deny the history of invasion and genocide, refuse to recognise the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as the original occupiers and owners and, above all, will fight to limit, delay and, if possible, demolish the land claims of many Indigenous communities.

     For the ruling class of capitalist Australia private property is sacred, not any concepts of justice or what is right.

     Decades of struggle by the people of Australia, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, brought about the "sorry statement". The struggle must continue to ensure that Rudd's commitments become reality - including voting in the new kind of government that will actually implement them.

Found at: http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint13/12_SORRY_-_ONE_WORD_HEARD_ACROSS_AUSTRALIA.html