Brynhild
11-15-2009, 08:57 PM
PM says sorry to 'Forgotten Australians'
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will make a second national apology in Canberra later on Monday.
This time he will be saying sorry to the half-million so-called Forgotten Australians, who suffered as children in state and church-run institutions up to the late 1970s.
Almost 1,000 of the group will attend a ceremony at Parliament House to hear Mr Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull offer an apology on behalf of the nation.
But the federal government won't be providing the Forgotten Australians with any financial compensation.
Instead it is helping survivors access counselling services and assisting the National Library of Australia to collect their stories for an oral history record.
Apology formalities will begin at 11am (AEDT) on Monday and will be broadcast live on television.
Meanwhile, the British government said on Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will apologise for 20th-century child migrant programs that saw thousands of poor British children sent to Australia, Canada and other former colonies until the 1960s. Many ended up in institutions or were sent to work as farm labourers.
Brown's office said officials would consult with representatives of the surviving children before making a formal apology next year.
The British government has estimated 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad under a variety of programs that operated between the early 19th century and 1967.
A 2001 Australian report said between 6,000 and 30,000 children from Britain and Malta, often taken from unmarried mothers or impoverished families, were sent alone to Australia as migrants during the 20th century. Some of the children were told, wrongly, that they were orphans.
The migration was intended to stop the children being a burden on the British state while supplying the receiving countries with potential workers. A 1998 British parliamentary inquiry noted: "A further motive was racist: the importation of 'good white stock' was seen as a desirable policy objective in the developing British Colonies."
British Children's Secretary Ed Balls said the child migrant policy was "a stain on our society."
"The apology is symbolically very important," he told Sky News television.
"I think it is important that we say to the children who are now adults and older people and to their offspring that this is something that we look back on in shame," he said.
"It would never happen today. But I think it is right that as a society when we look back and see things which we now know were morally wrong, that we are willing to say we're sorry."
Sandra Anker, who was sent to Australia from Britain when she was six, said the British government "have a lot to answer for".
"We've suffered all our lives," she told the BBC. "For the government of England to say sorry to us, it makes it right - even if it's late, it's better than not at all."
Source (http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/6475471/uk-australia-apology-to-child-migrants/)
I've grown up knowing about these unfortunate migrants. I couldn't even begin to fathom how bad they had it. Yet another smear in British history! :mad:
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will make a second national apology in Canberra later on Monday.
This time he will be saying sorry to the half-million so-called Forgotten Australians, who suffered as children in state and church-run institutions up to the late 1970s.
Almost 1,000 of the group will attend a ceremony at Parliament House to hear Mr Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull offer an apology on behalf of the nation.
But the federal government won't be providing the Forgotten Australians with any financial compensation.
Instead it is helping survivors access counselling services and assisting the National Library of Australia to collect their stories for an oral history record.
Apology formalities will begin at 11am (AEDT) on Monday and will be broadcast live on television.
Meanwhile, the British government said on Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will apologise for 20th-century child migrant programs that saw thousands of poor British children sent to Australia, Canada and other former colonies until the 1960s. Many ended up in institutions or were sent to work as farm labourers.
Brown's office said officials would consult with representatives of the surviving children before making a formal apology next year.
The British government has estimated 150,000 British children may have been shipped abroad under a variety of programs that operated between the early 19th century and 1967.
A 2001 Australian report said between 6,000 and 30,000 children from Britain and Malta, often taken from unmarried mothers or impoverished families, were sent alone to Australia as migrants during the 20th century. Some of the children were told, wrongly, that they were orphans.
The migration was intended to stop the children being a burden on the British state while supplying the receiving countries with potential workers. A 1998 British parliamentary inquiry noted: "A further motive was racist: the importation of 'good white stock' was seen as a desirable policy objective in the developing British Colonies."
British Children's Secretary Ed Balls said the child migrant policy was "a stain on our society."
"The apology is symbolically very important," he told Sky News television.
"I think it is important that we say to the children who are now adults and older people and to their offspring that this is something that we look back on in shame," he said.
"It would never happen today. But I think it is right that as a society when we look back and see things which we now know were morally wrong, that we are willing to say we're sorry."
Sandra Anker, who was sent to Australia from Britain when she was six, said the British government "have a lot to answer for".
"We've suffered all our lives," she told the BBC. "For the government of England to say sorry to us, it makes it right - even if it's late, it's better than not at all."
Source (http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/6475471/uk-australia-apology-to-child-migrants/)
I've grown up knowing about these unfortunate migrants. I couldn't even begin to fathom how bad they had it. Yet another smear in British history! :mad: