The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia's public broadcaster, the Australian taxpayer-funded equivalent of the UK BBC, and it produces national and local television, radio and online services (see: http://www.abc.net.au/ ) .
ABC News report “PM accused of Aboriginal :genocide”” (May 2007): “Prime Minister John Howard has been heckled during celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights.
An audience member accused Mr Howard of "genocide" after the Prime Minister had delivered his speech at Old Parliament House in Canberra today.
Earlier Mr Howard told the gathering that too many of the hopes expressed by those who campaigned for the referendum had not been realised.
"The right of an Aboriginal Australian to live on remote communal land and to speak an Indigenous language is no right at all if it is accompanied by grinding poverty, overcrowding, poor health, community violence and isolation from mainstream Australian society," he said.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd used his address to recommit a Labor government to issuing an apology to the Stolen Generations.
"We cannot simply pretend that certain things did not happen, of course they did," he said.
"That is why simply saying you are sorry is such a powerful symbol." [1].
[1]. ABC News, “PM accused of Aboriginal :genocide””, 27 May 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1934342.htm .