SORRY!

[Buff_Brad]

I wish i could live in your polically correct fantasy land, where legal ramifications and compensation claims were irrelevant to a nations future.

I wish you could spell.

Rudd's speech had nothing to do with legal ramifications and compensation claims. Jesus when is it finally going to sink in..............

And for Austeve and even Felix (who seems quite smart) the fcuking speech had no relevance to whether the kids were given a better ,cleaner more healthier, more Western , more what-fcuking ever!!! ... IT JUST WAS ABOUT SHOWING COMPASSION FOR A WRONG THAT WAS COMMITTED IN THE PAST THAT A LOT OF FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS HAVE HAD NO CLOSURE ON.

[Buff_Brad]

And how do you know ants are unintelligent, or that they are stupid for that matter?

Just because you cant communicate with them doesnt mean that they are stupid

For an equal rights activist you're not very accepting of those who are different

You're different TMC. Seek help.......

www.penisenlargement.com

I looked it up for you pal. Happy to help out when needed. Good luck!

[pinhead]

Furthermore who is to say what would be suitable compensation?

A treaty has to be negotiated - there is no arbiter. Our system for compensation for dispossession - the rule of law within a state - wouldn't exist if the dispossesion hadn't occured. We have to go back to an agreement between peoples - a treaty.

[reggie]

we acknowledged the bad we've done in this country, and hopefully it'll take us forward in the right direction. kev did good.

read something recently that gives a good perspective on things when you look at our exsistence on this planet. e.g. it was $40,000 years ago aboriginies inhabited australia. only $2,000 ago jesus died on the cross. $238 ago the british claimed australia as their own. $63 ago hilters power ended. when you look at it in $ compared to years, time seems like its nothing in the scheme of things.

the aboriginals experience and spiritual connection with the land is one to be admired. i think its all about educating and also appreciating what we got ourselves here.

[Marine Jacket Spud]

And how do you know ants are unintelligent, or that they are stupid for that matter?

Just because you cant communicate with them doesnt mean that they are stupid

For an equal rights activist you're not very accepting of those who are different

You're different TMC. Seek help.......

www.penisenlargement.com

I looked it up for you pal. Happy to help out when needed. Good luck!

Ants live in colonies. Buff Brad has recommended that you look at this penis website. Australia was a colony for a long time, although of humans and not Ants. It was not a penile colony.

As for saying sorry. That is the least we can do as a nation. Imagine sailing into Sydney Harbour 300 years ago. Aborigines would have inhabited all around, living off the sea and the bush. The bread baskets of this vast dry nation are the Eastern seaboard, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. These are all now vast 'Western' cities with predominantly white settlements. The Aborigines are pushed out into the dry vast lands away from these bread baskets, which they used to call home.

For those against an apology, brush up on your history and broaden your scope of thought. Try putting yourselves in somebody elses shoes. How would you feel if you were minding your own business one day when an army waltzed in and stole your town, state, country; all that is yours? Surely you would be angry, sad, scared and you would do anything to get back what this army stole.

For a moment, just put yourself in somebody elses shoes. Australians have never had it so good. Imagine being in the sh1t. You truly have no idea.

[g_u_m_b_y]

Sorry.

[Larry]

I wish some of you blokes would stop rattling the can here - anyone who travels this coast knows what a beautiful thing it is that is almost lost, we spend more time wandering, unknowingly, around sacred places than most other folks - and can only imagine what they must have been like 500 years ago.

Though I'm sure that even back then the local tribes had their problems, but at least they left the land in peace.

Being sorry for what was done to the locals is a fine thing, as is being sorry for what we've done to the country.

[bookster]

Ants live in colonies. Buff Brad has recommended that you look at this penis website. Australia was a colony for a long time, although of humans and not Ants. It was not a penile colony.

As for saying sorry. That is the least we can do as a nation. Imagine sailing into Sydney Harbour 300 years ago. Aborigines would have inhabited all around, living off the sea and the bush. The bread baskets of this vast dry nation are the Eastern seaboard, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. These are all now vast 'Western' cities with predominantly white settlements. The Aborigines are pushed out into the dry vast lands away from these bread baskets, which they used to call home.

For those against an apology, brush up on your history and broaden your scope of thought. Try putting yourselves in somebody elses shoes. How would you feel if you were minding your own business one day when an army waltzed in and stole your town, state, country; all that is yours? Surely you would be angry, sad, scared and you would do anything to get back what this army stole.

For a moment, just put yourself in somebody elses shoes. Australians have never had it so good. Imagine being in the sh1t. You truly have no idea.

well put, and I'd like to add my SORRY to the ones already here. There's little I can do to correct past wrongs except agree that is what they were... wrongs. I'm sorry that they happened. An expression of sorrow about past events is long overdue, and a sure sign of maturity in a Government accused of inexperience.

for those that feel that they don't need to apologize.... try a little bit of empathy, ya big cynics - especially for folks that haven't had (in rudd-speak) a "fair go" since day one.

[bookster]

I wish some of you blokes would stop rattling the can here - anyone who travels this coast knows what a beautiful thing it is that is almost lost, we spend more time wandering, unknowingly, around sacred places than most other folks - and can only imagine what they must have been like 500 years ago.

I often think about what it was like here 500 years ago- especially the number of people in the surf

[Chamberess]

Saying sorry to native Australians is long overdue.

We just need to look to the US to see how good a job they did- driving the native americans out of their land. The Native americans who agreed to hand over most of the land in exchange for yearly payment to buy food but what they got was a slap in the face and went hungry. So they went to war and when the US government started counting the toll they agreed to allocate 'reservations' for the Indians. Their hunting grounds today are limited as they arn't free to roam as they once were.

We grab the land from indigenous australians as if it's owed to us when we are merely just caretakers. I think land rights should be reconsidered.

It's good to see Rudd say what the majority of us have been wanting for years.

[CRACKERS]

But I'll be fcuckedd if I will apologise for something that was done by other people before I was even born.

It's an expression of regret you imbecile. God some people? ..... low IQ or what! Yeah or an underlying racist weirdo. I'll go with that. Your IQ's probably around the high nineties.

Sorrow is a very different expression of emotion when compared to regret.

Just because he has a differing opinion to you does not mean that he is an imbecile.

Some would say its imbecillic to acuse someone of racism merely because he feels he has no responsibility, in regards to occurences the took place half a century ago. Others would say its imbecillic to ride a wave of public emotion without excercising ones discretion in matters of opinion. (This has nothing to do with you BB, just thoughts on life in general)

Personally i dont think we should stop with aboriginals, i think we should say sorry to all the irish convicts who were unfairly punished and moved half way around the world, in th 1780s.

Lets not forget about all the asian gold miners who were persecuted in the gold rush of the 1850s?

Let's not stop at humans, lets also apologise to all the animals who have been "disposessed" of their homes and original way of life, as a result of anglo settlement in australia.


But then i guess the question is posed, where do we stop?

i dont imagine that theres to many of those irish convicts kicking about or the asian gold miners......so id say i can answer your question, we start and stop by apologising to the ones still alive? ie : stolen generation?

[Beanpole]

To all of those who beleive in aboriginal reconcilliation (please note reconcilliation is not a synnonym for saying sorry), i ask you, what do you honestly think will happen now that the all important word has been uttered?

Do you truly think the indigenous community is going to stand up, turn to the government and say "thanks guys, appreciate the apology we're going to go get on with our lives now that our wishes have been fulfilled"

Personally i think this has opened up a Mabo sized can of worms which will see our country engulfed in litigation for decades to come.

TMC Mabo hasn't been that big a deal. Look at Crescent Head. One of the first successful claims. Most of the land sold back to white fellas at a cheap price. I missed my chance to snare a very cheap block by being non commital at the time :?

We live in one of the richest countries in the world with one of the smallest populations and most of that wealth has been made by digging up and exploiting the land.

[TMC]

BB what is your obsession with my penis?

Surely there must be more pressing issues in your life? Like educating yourself? or reading those fairytales that you seem to love

For once you're right Rudd's speech did not address the issue of compensation, however one of the great implications of his speech will be large compensations claims from the indigenous community, which he failed to mitigate with his address.

[Hano]

[quote=]The scare campaign about 'compensation' is right up there with the yarn about 'union bosses' for mine.

[/quote]

Every victim deserves the right to compensation.
If you think it's scary then you can wait in line behind LJH & Nelson for your headbutt.

[Spoon]

Time to move on and work together to save the land before we stuff it completely.

[Nick Carroll]

Hence, as you are saying Nick ( I think!) that being a proud Aussie is entirely consistent with being sorry.

Not just consistent -- imperative.

Like it's one of the big steps as a person -- learning that willingness to walk in the other's shoes, to feel some of what they feel, and thus to make the human connection richer and stronger. Pain and joy, shame, grief, love, despair, hope, they're just different facets of the same thing.

I get a feeling that a lot of the people who seem so enraged by the idea of an apology are just being emotionally infantile about it. They think it's all about them -- like it's a slur on them. Their infantile response in the face of what happened is what triggers my anger on the subject. I mean...compare their little spurts of indignation to the horror of what happened to those families and kids.

Maybe underneath it they are honestly afraid to approach the intensity of emotion involved, I can understand that way more than I can understand the surface response.

They seem to relentlessly identify apology solely with blame -- this also seems childish to me, the sort of thing you learn at five years of age, then grow beyond with your first real heartbreak or loss. Whereas an apology conducted with a full heart and knowledge is a way of crossing the gulf between people as opposed to widening it. "Sorry" is not an out, the way a schoolkid uses it to try to avoid punishment -- it's a way IN. A way to CONNECT.

[Chamberess]

I was reading in the paper this morning there was an apparent backlash to Rudd's sorry speech.

Alot of 'white' people are not happy he said it. They have asked why indigenous australians get such ready access to welfare compared to white children in equally disadvantaged situations. Another also asked why Rudd didn't say 'sorry' to the war veterans who helped defend this country against Japan.

I'm not sure if anyone else read about it but what i gathered from it was that there are alot of racist people in Australia even though we pride ourselves as being a multicultural nation.

Does anyone else share this feeling?

[Larry]

You're not Robinson Caruso there bookster, there used to be a museum up at Port Maq that had a small section that contained pics of the locals, back when the colonisers first showed up.

Photos of young men sitting and standing on some boulders up there on the coast somewhere - and physically unlike the tall and long legged blokes we see from the bush - These young blokes were all built like they had been in solid training for years; solid, compact and with all the shoulder work you see in a heavy duty boardrider - and none of them were smiling.

They looked a very tough outfit