On 13 February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly to the Stolen Generations whose lives had been blighted by past government policies of forced child removal and assimilation.
On 13 February 2008, the Parliament of Australia issued a formal apology to Indigenous Australians for forced removals of Australian Indigenous children (often referred to as the Stolen Generations) from their families by Australian federal and state government agencies.
1956—Jessie Street urges the Aboriginal leader Pearl Gibbs and South Sea Islander activist Faith Bandler to form the Aboriginal–Australian Fellowship and to start a petition for a referendum to change the constitution.
1969. By 1969, all states had repealed the legislation allowing for the removal of Aboriginal children under the policy of 'protection'.
' In 2008, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised on behalf of the Australian Government to the Stolen Generations – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families and communities by successive colonial and Australian governments.
Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tabled a motion in parliament on February 13, 2008, apologizing to Australia's Indigenous people, particularly the Stolen Generations and their families and communities, for the laws and policies that inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss.
National Sorry Day is a day to acknowledge the strength of Stolen Generations Survivors and reflect on how we can all share in the healing process. The inaugural National Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998.
First apologies
The Western Australian Government was the first state government to act, issuing its apology on 27 May 1997. By 2001 all state and territory governments had issued apologies.
To many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, there is little to celebrate, and it is a commemoration of a deep loss – loss of sovereign rights to their land, loss of family, loss of the right to practice their culture.
Commemorations such as Sorry Day serve as a permanent link between present and past generations – committing them to memory and assigning them with importance, meaning and purpose. National Sorry Day commemorates not only the past but the continuity of injustice borne by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
historical usage of sorry
Sorry has been in written English since the time of King Alfred the Great (849–899), the word first appearing in his translation of Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy.
The origins of the word 'sorry' can be traced to the Old English 'sarig' meaning “distressed, grieved or full of sorrow”, but of course, most British people use the word more casually.
The Stolen Generations refers to a period in Australia's history where Aboriginal children were removed from their families through government policies. This happened from the mid-1800s to the 1970s.
Is it OK to call Indigenous Australians 'Aborigines'? 'Aborigine' is generally perceived as insensitive, because it has racist connotations from Australia's colonial past, and lumps people with diverse backgrounds into a single group.
It is not appropriate to use the term 'indigenous' in lower case when referring to Australia's Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. 'non-Indigenous' is a term used in Australia when providing two perspectives, the Australian Indigenous peoples, and the rest of the Australian population.
In NSW, under the Aborigines Protection Act 1909, the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board had wide ranging control over the lives of Aboriginal people, including the power to remove Aboriginal children from their families under a policy of 'assimilation'.
In most respects, Japan is the most apologetic country in the world. Japanese say they are sorry a dozen times a day when they have done nothing wrong.
One of the reasons girls use hedging or apologetic language is because it feels more polite. Although all genders are encouraged to have good manners, a heavier value is often placed on girls' ability to be nice, polite, and compliant. There's nothing wrong with being polite—if the situation calls for it, says Dr.
God promises that if they remain, He will “rebuild” them and make them a great people once again. Then God does something astonishing, something He has never done before: He says sorry!
Over-apologizing is a common symptom amongst individuals with low self-esteem, fear of conflict and a fear of what others think. This goes hand in hand with poor boundaries, perhaps accepting blame for things we didn't do or couldn't control.
And even earlier, King Charles I of England is quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations as writing "Never make a defence or apology before you be accused", in a letter to Lord Wentworth as long ago as 1636.
apology (n.)
The original English sense of "self-justification" yielded a meaning "frank expression of regret for wrong done," attested by 1590s, but this was not the main sense until 18c.
Every May 26 in Australia, National Sorry Day reminds the colonist-descended people of the nation to remember the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Why?
The English settlers and their descendants expropriated native land and removed the indigenous people by cutting them from their food resources, and engaged in genocidal massacres.