CANBERRA, Australia — Australia will issue its first formal apology to the country’s indigenous people Feb. 13, a senior minister said today, a step that could ease tensions with a minority once subjected to policies that included removal of mixed-blood children from families on the premise that their race was doomed.
The apology toward the so-called “stolen generation” of Aborigines would be the first item of business for the new Parliament, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised after his Labor Party won November elections to push Parliament for a formal apology to Aborigines.
Macklin and Rudd have previously ruled out financial compensation for the impoverished minority, who number about 450,000 among a population of 21 million.
