AUSTRALIA: Date set for formal 'Stolen Generation' apology

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Updated January 31, 2008 21:11:48

Within days of winning November's general elections, the new Australian government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised to formally say sorry to Australia's so-called Stolen Generation. Now a date has been set for a formal parliamentary apology to members of the Aboriginal community forcibly removed from their parents under government policy until the 1970s. Mr Rudd's predecessor John Howard firmly resisted the recommendation from a 1997 national inquiry to make such an apology and it remains a difficult issue for many Australian politicians.

Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speakers: Zita Wallace, chair of the Central Australian Stolen Generations and Families Aboriginal Corporation; Barbara Levesie, CEO of Reconciliation Australia; Robert Manne, Political Science Professor, La Trobe University, Melbourne

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