Today at 9:00am, the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Kevin Rudd, unconditionally apologised to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on behalf of the Parliament and Government for the forced removal of children [The Stolen Generation] from families during a large part of the 20th Century.

The speech was read at exactly 9am, as the very first action of the second sitting day of the 42nd Parliament of Australia.

Former prime ministers Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser and former Governor General Sir William Deane were all seated on the floor of the Parliament as well as 17 people representing the stolen generation.

After the motion, Mr. Rudd went on to say:

"These stories cry out to be heard, they cry out for an apology.

"Instead from the nation's Parliament there has been a stony and stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade.

"A view that somehow we the Parliament should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong.

"A view that instead we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side.

"To leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon.

"But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities, they are human beings, human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments.

"But as of today the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end."

• A full copy of the speech can be found online here: The Apology 2008

Listen to the Prime Minister's Speech here.

Related Links:

ABC Online - The Apology

The Age Newspaper

Sydney Morning Herald

The Associated Press

The BBC

Bloomberg

Christian Science Monitor

CNN

Voice of America

New Zealand Herald

SkyNews Online

National_Apology2008.mp3

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