First, watch the video and hear the Australian Prime Minister apologize to the native Australians. You can read his speech right below while you listen:
On 13th of February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal Apology on behalf of the nation to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples, particularly the Stolen Generations.
I move:
That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations—this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
The Hon Kevin Rudd
13 February 2008
Study two additional sources:
Pair work: Discussion
a) After watching the apology speech and Behind the News, discuss whether you think this is an effective and appropriate apology. Support your opinion.
b) What did you learn about the Stolen Generation from the film?
c) How did watching this film make you feel? Why?
d) What is your opinion of this film as a representation of how children/indigenous Australians were treated?
Take notes as you discuss and prepare to share with class. (product - upload your notes in ElevFeedBack in today's class)
Insert a correct word where one is missing:
Ten years ____ , Aboriginal Australian Ian Hamm welcomed words he had been waiting a lifetime to ____.
"For the pain, suffering and hurt of these _____ Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry," ____ Rudd, then PM, said in Parliament.
The apology ____ on 13 February, 2008, referred to a shameful national chapter in which _______ children were forcibly ______ from their families.
Mr Hamm was among them.
As a three-week-old baby __1964, he was taken from his aborigional family by government officers and adopted into a white community.
Tens of thousands of other indigenous children were _____ over successive generations until 1970, under policies aimed at assimilation.
Mr Hamm said Mr Rudd's historic apology helped changed his own sense of ______.
"My country doesn't argue about me any ____ - it gave me peace that my story, like so many others, wasn't a matter of debate," he told ___ BBC.
"I remember writing out my feelings the day after the speech and I called it: 'Today is the day I wake up.'"
(product - upload missing words in ElevFeedBack in today's class)