wfn.org | AUSTRALIA: CALL FOR BOTH SIDES TO APOLOGISE

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

June 26, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.6.3.1]

AUSTRALIA: CALL FOR BOTH SIDES TO APOLOGISE
(Muriel Porter Church Times) Australia's only Aboriginal bishop has
called on his people to apologise for killing white settlers in the
past. The Rt Revd Arthur Malcolm, Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of
North Queensland, has said that both sides needed to apologise.  He was
speaking after Australia's Prime Minister and Federal Government had
refused to respond to calls for a formal national apology for the
so-called "stolen children".  Aboriginal children removed forcibly from
their parents over many decades.

A report recently tabled to Parliament by the Australian Human Rights
and Equal Opportunity Commission had called for an apology for this
policy, aswell as for compensation.

But though the Prime Minister, John Howard, told a reconciliation
convention that he, personally, was sorry for what had happened, he has
so far refused to countenance a national response.

Bishop Malcolm says that in the early days of settlement, Aborigines, as
well as white people, committed atrocities.  Aborigines would apologise
for this, when white people did:"Both groups have to come to agreement,
and then we'll say sorry."

This has fuelled controversy.  Other black leaders, and historians, have
pointed out that killings by black people were few, in comparison with
killings by whites.