Current Events > Australian PM: 'Sorry' isn't the hardest word to say. 'I forgive you' is.

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https://www.smh.com.au/national/pm-prompts-fury-by-looking-for-forgiveness-14-years-after-rudd-s-apology-20220214-p59weu.html

In a speech delivered to mark 14 years since the Rudd government issued the Apology to Australias Indigenous Peoples, Mr Morrison said an apology involves standing in the middle ground exposed, vulnerable and seeking forgiveness.

Forgiveness was an act of grace, he added. Its an act of courage. And it is a gift that only those who have been wounded, damaged and destroyed can offer. I also said 14 years ago, sorry is not the hardest word to say, the hardest is I forgive you.

Context: This speech was made 14 years after the Australian Prime Minister of the time apologized to Aboriginals for how they were treated by the Australian Government. This included taking away Aboriginal children from their parents and giving them to white families to raise. Which only stopped being a thing in the 70s.

So I think we'll be seeing how easy it hard it is for Scott to say sorry rather soon.

Fun fact, our current Minister of Defence - the same man who spearheaded two attempts to remove the Prime Minister to attain the position for himself, only to get bitch-whipped both times - was one of seven MPs who boycotted the apology.

Imagine being such an evil little rat that when the PM issues an apology for the wilful abduction and forcible assimilation of indigenous children, a move which won significant bipartisan support at the time, you're one of seven losers so upset at the thought of apologizing for colonial atrocities that you make a show of boycotting it.

Peter Dutton has always been a fucked little weasel, and the sooner someone takes him out back and stomps on his head for breaking into the chicken coop and eating all the eggs, the better. Absolute scum.

Lol what a meltdown.

I can think of about ten Australian animals whose names are harder to pronounce.

Sorry about the genocide for which you were never given justice, compensation or basic human dignity. It's all good though right?

Nah, just venting about one of the worst modern members of parliament. I only found out about this like a year or two ago, way after I knew about his immigration hypocrisy and his attempt to deflect from Fraser Anning's statement about the Christchurch shootings by smearing the Greens as "just as bad".

It was a significant and particularly aggressive derail from the point of the thread, I'll give you that. So in regards to the actual topic:

This statement from Scott Morrison is yet another significant political gaffe in a conga line of the media kicking the shit out of him, and what he doesn't seem to acknowledge is that the initial apology was received pretty well by the indigenous community - all the way to a significant figure in the field of indigenous human rights:

Dr. Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, gave a speech formally responding to the government's apology. Calma thanked the Parliament for acknowledging and paying respects to the Stolen Generations, stating "By acknowledging and paying respect, Parliament has now laid the foundations for healing to take place and for a reconciled Australia in which everyone belongs".

Outside of the seven toads who decided to boycott the event, even the opposition leader released a statement in support for the apology, which itself was appreciated.

Rather, the reason why this quote from Morrison sounds particularly tone-deaf is because after the apology itself, progress towards repairing the rift between indigenous Australians didn't exactly kick into high gear. Even as far back as 2009, it was acknowledged that not every recommendation made by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission was taken up by the laws and acts introduced during the apology - by the same man who was appreciative of the apology, even:

However, Calma did note that there were many recommendations in the Bringing Them Home report that, as of 2009, had not yet been implemented.

One reason that tensions are flaring in the indigenous community is that the last 9 years of Liberal rule haven't been promising in actually improving relations with the indigenous population. We're making strides, but between Tony "Stop the Boats" Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and his extensive corporate tax cuts and the balding little churchy stooge we have right now, we've had so many ridiculous media circuses about mouth-breathing morons making obscenely expensive moves with taxpayer money.

We've seen unprecedented corruption between Daryl Maguire, Gladys Berejiklian and John Barilaro. We've seen more money going to private schools - schools which charge their own fees into the hundreds of thousands - than public schools who don't charge their own fees. We've seen banks and large retailers retain hundreds of millions of illegally gained JobKeeper funds in the past two years alone.

So who's thinking about the indigenous population while all of this is going on?

The communities affected by water trading and illegal damming in the Murray-Darling basin are predominantly rural indigenous communities, who were already significantly poorer than the average Australian community. They got one shipment of bottled water from a third party, and zero aid from the Government themselves. But the government over there is more interested in profiting off of water trading than fixing the natural flow of the Murray-Darling river, which can be done if the flow of the river wasn't being hijacked by cotton farmers before it got to the bottom of the basin.

You've got far-right anti-vaxxer groups trying to hijack indigenous protest groups and redirect them to alt-right causes. You can see what happened there with the scumfucks who used indigenous protestors as a smokescreen to set fire to Old Parilament house.

You can see it in the disrespectful way that indigenous communities are policed, letting indigenous women fight in the street without trying to break it up because "stopping it now would just escalate it later".

So you can see how 13 years after Kevin Rudd's apology to the indigenous community and getting the ball rolling on legislation that sought to make amends for human rights violations that were perpetuated by the state, indigenous people might not exactly be happy with how little has actually been done to mend that rift. Because with this nation's disgusting history of leadership spills in the past 12 years - yes, even under Labor - and the absolute clown show this nation has been governed by, and especially with the emergence of a more fervent and nationalistic right wing in the wake of the mid-10's global shift to the right... not a whole lot has been going on to address the indigenous community.

What Kevin Rudd did was get the ball rolling. A sane and competent government would have found a way to keep that ball rolling to some degree while balancing the budget and keeping an air of dignity and respectfulness about them. But our elected officials have descended into such a level of jackanapery that we can't even trust them not to enrich themselves through abject corruption. And now, thirteen years later, the most repugnant toad of them all - even worse than Tony Abbott, which I never fucking thought I would say - has the gall to say "hey, we apologized to you, why didn't you ever forgive us?".

Kevin Rudd's apology was a start. We didn't hold up our end of the bargain because we were legislating the ability to send refugee boats back out to sea to die, deposing our prime minister for being too moderate and enriching not just members of parliament, but corporate entities like banks and Harvey Norman with hundreds of millions of illegally granted funds. The indigenous community aren't happy about that, and I don't blame them - so to turn around like the smug prick he is and complain about the indigenous community "not forgiving" the government after such a respectful and well-received apology? It misses the point of that apology entirely, and it's such a crude and remarkably disappointing way to commemorate what should be remembered as one of this nation's most important steps forward.

Of course none of what I said was without anger, so please do respond to my standard wall of text shenanigans with a quote of your "lol what a meltdown" post. But regardless, that's my actual opinion of this statement, and considering the absolute beatdown this moron has rightfully been suffering at the hands of the media, I can only hope that this truly dumb-fuck take Scomo has put out gets him another wave of journalistic boots lodged in his shitter.

I guess its true.

You hear people apologize all the time but hardly ever do you ever hear people declare their forgiveness.

We could do with more forgiveness in this world.

Scomo is toast, Labor will win in May, i can't stand Dutton either.

The only problem Labor has is that Albonese comes across as quite and boring, Labor need to step up and be more vocal and see able.

That I can agree on. I think a lot of it has to do with fundraising, I think Labor has fundraising and donation guidelines that keep them from being tied up in donor promises and shady deals. Meanwhile the United Australia Party is bankrolled by a billionaire, and who knows where the Liberal party are getting their money.

dioxxys posted...

I guess its true.

You hear people apologize all the time but hardly ever do you ever hear people declare their forgiveness.

We could do with more forgiveness in this world.

The context is exceptionally poor. Asking for forgiveness over a total atrocity that still affects an entire group of people when you've done less than the bare minimum is just awful.

ColdOne666 posted...

Labor will win in May,

I'll believe it when I see it. After all the evil the libs have committed for over a decade. For the NBN. The bush fires. The sports rorts. Everything. It's amounted to barely anything. They still over over 40% approval rating. Our country has some of the dumbest voters in the world, only america "beats" us there.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

I'll believe it when I see it. After all the evil the libs have committed for over a decade. For the NBN. The bush fires. The sports rorts. Everything. It's amounted to barely anything. They still over over 40% approval rating. Our country has some of the dumbest voters in the world, only america "beats" us there.

The bush fires aren't gonna magically not start or disappear due to what party is in charge, that's just ridiculous. Australia has always been a land of drought and fire followed by floods.

ColdOne666 posted...

The bush fires aren't gonna magically not start or disappear due to what party is in charge, that's just ridiculous. Australia has always been a land of drought and fire followed by floods.

i meant underfunding the fire department and ensuring it was a far worse disaster than it normally would have been under competent leadership. and then there was the whole scenario where scummo was kicking back in hawaii while the country burned and all he had to say was "i dont hold a hose"

pinky0926 posted...

The context is exceptionally poor. Asking for forgiveness over a total atrocity that still affects an entire group of people when you've done less than the bare minimum is just awful.

I didnt read opening post.

I just agree with the title.

MrMallard posted...

Fun fact, our current Minister of Defence - the same man who spearheaded two attempts to remove the Prime Minister to attain the position for himself, only to get bitch-whipped both times - was one of seven MPs who boycotted the apology.

Imagine being such an evil little rat that when the PM issues an apology for the wilful abduction and forcible assimilation of indigenous children, a move which won significant bipartisan support at the time, you're one of seven losers so upset at the thought of apologizing for colonial atrocities that you make a show of boycotting it.

Peter Dutton has always been a fucked little weasel, and the sooner someone takes him out back and stomps on his head for breaking into the chicken coop and eating all the eggs, the better. Absolute scum.

I know the guy Peter Dutton is suing over a Twitter post calling him a rape apologist.

Dutton is absolute scum. It's obvious he wants to be the new leader of the liberal party and I think he'd be even worse.

I'm actually shocked at how much things have gotten worse since Abbott. I thought he was bottom of the barrel.