If I may.

Leeneia and Rog have genuine rights to their opinion.

However; I went to Teachers College with eight "Indigenes" here in Melbourne. All but one was a 'Stolen' child. I was given a hard time for hanging around with them by others (whites). However, they were never anything less than polite and accepting of me. One even went so far as to never call me by my given name, but used a word "Djambi" - I asked him once what that meant (I thought he had given me a nick-name that was making a bit of fun of me). He told me it was a word that had no literal translation into English but meant (in his language) something more than a friend or even a cousin but not quite a brother - but nearly so: I was so honoured. By the time we graduated, they were all calling me that.

What this meant was that if an Aboriginal couple had a child who looked more 'white' than normal or if the child was half/quarter/eighth etc caste then that child was removed from his/her parents and taken to a government run "Orphanage" where thir acknowledgement of their own heritage, the speaking of their own language, the wish to return to or hold on to their roots was literally beaten out of them and they were inculcated into "White" life and culture. I have also had several close friends over the years who were 'stolen' - several of whom only found out they were Aboriginal after their "parents" died. One is now a brilliant speaker, artist and Didjeridu player who's paintings are now exhibited world-wide!

A brilliant book by Sally Morgan - a woman raised as "an adopted Indian orphan" (to simplify the explanation of her status growing up)by a Western Australian couple who only found out that she was, in fact Aboriginal when she was an adult is called "My Way".
Similarly, if you wish to see a really good rendition of the way in which the children were 'stolen'; watch the film "Rabbit-Proof Fence".

While I am first generation Australian (Scottish) paternally and about sixth or seventh of Irish Convict/German semi-aristocratic stock Maternally. I can hardly be held accountable for the 'stealing of children or lands' by Australian/British forebears - none of my maternal ones were landowners or even Indigenous-servant-possessors.

However, I have no problem with saying Sorry for the wrongs done to the Aboriginal people of this land and the theft of their children up until as recently as the 1970's. In fact SO deep are those feelings of terror among the Aboriginals of 'child stealing' that when our "revered" Prime Minister - and I use the term revered VERY, VERY loosely and with tongue firmly planted in my cheek - announced he was taking drastic measures with regard to alcoholism, drug problems etc in some Aboriginal communities; by sending in the ARMY, no less, many of those communities hid their children until they had reassurances that the children were not going to be removed.

the majority of the 'Stolen Generation' have NEVER managed to locte living Indigenous relatives/tribe/ family and have remained cut off and adrift. The spiritual connection of Aboriginals to their culture and heritage is deep-seated and it is often that inner pull that leads them to discover that they are in fact Aboriginals and NOT something else: it is something that seems to be a part of them no matter how far removed from their indigenous roots they are - Errol. a bloke I went to college with was sandy-haired, green-eyed, and whiter than me. The only "giveaway" was a 'pug' nose. He chased up his family tree (working in a Government Department at the time helped) he found out he was on-sixteenth Indigenous and his Great-grandmother was a half-caste who was exiled to a Bass Starit Island along with all the other remaining Tasmanian Aboriginals in the 19th Century - including her mother where they largely died out (the full-bloods did) and Errol's Grandmother and mother were then 'resettled' on the mainland as "white folks". My artist mate grew up thinking he was of Mediterranean stock until his "parents" died and he then went through the papers they held and found he wasa 1/4 caste Aboriginal!

There is also the matter of massacres perpetrated on the Aboriginals by whites - regularly: I come from a small town where two such massacres occurred nearby and where a mud-brick and stone "fort" still stands in defiance of the local "blacks". Is there any mention of the massacres - - - NO: But there IS a memorial to two whites who died in the process of committing the massacre!
Also is the lamentable fact that in another district (it occurred in many - but was actually recorded in this one) where a "Good Samaritan" donated several hundred pounds of flour to local Aboriginal communities - unfortunately the flour was laced with either cyanide or arsenic and though only nine died in the district I am talking about - many got sick and all realised where the sickness originated and ditched the flour; other districts managed to lose many more - some in the hundreds.
In yet another district I sat with an elder who, in tears, spoke of a time when his tribe, after being herded onto a 'reservation' were starving (they weren't allowed to hunt in the nearby "White Man's Forest". It seems some young men stole a single sheep to feed the people and the Squatter who owned the purloined animal descended on the camp and he and his men systematically raped and killed in retribution - I won't go into details; even in recollection they sicken me.
Then of course there was the practice in the Northern Territory of stockmen invading cmps and killing everyone except the young women who were then dragged off to act as scouts, trackers and 'bed-warmers' for the abductors - the song "Drover's Boy" by Ted Egan and sung brilliantly by John Williamson tell it beautifully.

I know I have ranted and I will have offended many "non-sorry" adherents. I do not criticise your right to saying NO to a sorry statement.
I persoanlly am not sorry for what was done - it wasn't me or members of my family or kin past or present who were involved.

BUT - I think a sorry is in order not so much to actually say sorry for doing these things: but as an ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that these things WERE done.

It's just a little word - but it would mean so much.

It's so typical that this kind of red-necked attitude of banning such a song would happen in Queensland. After all one of the commonest sayings here in Australia is said while crossing the border from New South Wales into Queensland - - - "Ladies and Gentlemen, you are now entering Queensland ; Please turn your watches back 50 years!

Muttley