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MIKE SECCOMBE from the Gallery
For what, exactly, did John Howard apologise yesterday? Murder,
rape, starvation, dispossession, bigotry?
He never said. In a speech largely devoted to personal
self-justification and a sort of national self-congratulation, the Prime
Minister not only did not say sorry to Aborigines, he did not even hint at
what he and the nation might be sorry for.
In fact, Howard had spoken for a considerable time before he even
mentioned Aborigines. He was at such pains to avoid mentioning the horrors
of the past - especially the stolen generations - that when he finally
made his "expression of regret" he actually described it as "generic".
"The purpose of this motion is to generically express in relation to a
number of issues the regret the people of Australia feel for those past
practices and the continuing consequences," he said. He could scarcely
have been more graceless, uncharitable and grudging. Contrast this with
his deputy, National Party leader John Anderson, whose political
constituency is much more ticklish on the subject of race than Howard's,
but whose sensitivity and decency shone through.
Myall Creek Station, where 27 Aboriginal men, women and children were
massacred in 1838, is in his electorate. Anderson not only reminded the
Parliament of the atrocity, he reminded us that one juror in the first
trial of the seven men who did it called Aborigines "monkeys" and said he
would never "see a white man suffer for shooting a black". But Anderson
also recalled that in the face of such attitudes, the NSW attorney-general
of the time, John Plunkett, brought new charges and the perpetrators were
re-tried and hanged.
"In that incident," he said, "you see the very worst behaviour, but you
also see the very best behaviour. I deeply and sincerely regret the worst,
but I celebrate the hope that the best gives us." It was probably John
Anderson's finest speech, and we should celebrate the hope it gives for
reconciliation. And Howard's speech? It was a matter for generic
regret |
