Ten years on: The fraud of Australian parliament’s “stolen generations” apology - World Socialist Web Site

19.2.18

Ten years on: The fraud of Australian parliament’s “stolen generations” apology - World Socialist Web Site: By Mike Head
17 February 2018

Hypocrisy abounded inside Australia’s parliamentary great hall this week when about 300 politicians and indigenous representatives gathered for a breakfast event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the former Labor government’s “national apology” to the “stolen generations” of Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who delivered the nationally-televised apology on the floor of the parliament in February 2008, was feted as a visionary who had offered an “historic statement” acknowledging the crimes committed against the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population since the British conquest of the continent in 1788.

One shocking statistic points to the monumental political fraud involved in the “apology” and its ongoing acclamation as a “landmark event.” Today, more than 17,000 indigenous children are living in out-of-home care, compared with about 9,000 a decade ago. In other words, a new “stolen generation” is being created, with the numbers of children taken from their parents almost doubling in 10 years.