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Kevin Rudd's sorry speech

Ten years later, are Indigenous Australians better off? - by

Kevin Rudd’s ‘Sorry Speech’ was the result of years of inquiry into the thousands of Indigenous Australian children who had been savagely taken from their homes, and what could be done to repair that. But it was also the move of a man willing to say sorry.

On May 26, 1997 a report called Bringing Them Home was tabled in Parliament recommending that the Prime Minister issue a public apology to the Stolen Generation.

Then-Prime Minister John Howard refused stating he "did not subscribe to the black armband view of history."

In the absence of a formal political recognition, National Sorry Day was established to raise awareness of the Aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families and to acknowledge the painful impact and ongoing suffering that had been inflicted on the Indigenous people of Australia.

After being sworn in on Monday December 3, 2007, Kevin Rudd declared his first act would help rectify “this blemished chapter in our national history”.

A year later at 9am on February 13, 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd became the first Australian Prime Minister to issue a formal, national apology.

“I believe it was absolutely the right thing to do as the first act in my prime ministership in parliament. This had been unfinished business for the nation for a very long time and it was time to bring that chapter to a close,” Rudd told The Guardian...

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