For most of the past year a large percentage of the hits on this site have come from google searches for the Australian Prime Minister John Rudd. I blogged on him when he first apologised to the Aboriginal peoples of his land for wrongs against them. He is at it again!
"We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter of our nation's history and we come together today to offer our nation's apology,
"... to you, the Forgotten Australians and those who were sent to our shores as children without their consent ... we are sorry.
"Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where you were so often abused, sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation, and the cold absence of love of tenderness of care.
"Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy of childhoods lost, childhoods spent instead in austere and authoritarian places where names were replaced by numbers."
"The truth is a great evil has been done." ...
"The truth is this is an ugly story and its ugliness must be told without fear or favour if we are to confront fully the demons of our past."
More here on an ABC Australia says Sorry for "great evil"
and on the BBC: Australia 'sorry' for child abuse
Of course, most of the hits by people looking for Rudd are in pursuit not of what he did say but what he actually patently didn't say! Beware the hoax "Muslims out of Australia Speech" More soon!
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