The Stolen Generation Story

[marcel]

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:43:12 +1300 (NZDT)
From: "tep...@hotmail.com" <jank...@yahoo.co.nz>



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Hawawira: Saying sorry is not enough 5:00AM Wednesday February 13,
2008
By Yvonne Tahana
Hone Harawira. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The Stolen Generation
For the indignity and degradation inflicted...we say sorry
At least two former PMs to be in Canberra for apology


Hone Harawira believes the only way to give substance to Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd's apology to Australia's Stolen Generation is
through financial redress.
The Australian PM has ruled out compensation for decades of
government policy which led to the destruction of many Aboriginal
families.
But Mr Harawira, a Maori Party MP, said there still had to be some
sort of financial plan to lift Aborigines from the bottom of the heap.
"In the golden land - Australians call it the golden land - there can
be no excuses. There has to be a financial component to the whole
thing, to bring [Aborigines] back to their status as a first nation."
Momentum for positive change shouldn't stop at the apology, he said.
The country could consider a setting up a national body to
investigate the history of colonisation, the effect it has had on
indigenous people and a financial plan to start addressing current
disadvantage.
Mr Harawira is in Canberra - a self-funded trip at the invitation of
leaders he met in Alice Springs last year when he left from a taxpayer-
funded parliamentary trip to Victoria.