Editorial: Another overdue Australian apology

OPINION: Australia, which likes to be known as "the lucky country" has not been lucky for everyone.

Its indigenous population has suffered terribly under colonisation and some of the harm was belatedly recognised early last year when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did what his predecessor had failed to do for 10 years after a damning report was released.

Mr Rudd made a sincere apology to the "stolen generations", the 100,000 Aboriginal children, mostly of mixed blood, who were taken from their parents between 1910 and the early 1970s to be raised by non-Aboriginals under a well-meant but misguided assimilation policy that destroyed families and caused endless misery. It was a great leap forward in Australian race relations. Now he has done something similar for the "forgotten Australians", another group of children who suffered under cruel policy-making and indifferent government – and again a healing has begun through the age-old but still powerful action of saying "sorry".

Mr Rudd apologised to all those who endured ill-treatment in Australia's orphanages and institutions in the 20th century, for "the tragedy, the absolute tragedy of childhoods lost". The experiences of those born in Australia should not be minimised, but the greatest focus has been on the 10,000 or so child migrants shipped there from Britain after World War II. The idea was that they would have better lives and boost the white Australian workforce. The reality was that many were lost to their British families – frequently children of single mothers were told they were orphans – and were subjected to abuse and exploitation. They thought they were going to the promised land but many have had deeply unhappy lives.

It is to be hoped that understanding has grown to the point where this sort of thing won't be contemplated again in any Western society, though equally bad treatment is still being handed to children in many parts of the developing world. In apologising – with the support of the Opposition – Mr Rudd has done the right thing and this has been acknowledged by some of those who were affected. Like his earlier apology, it has begun to heal old wounds.

Britain, too, is set to apologise for the child migrant programmes, and there are calls for New Zealand to do the same – this country took 549 child migrants between 1948 and 1954. But Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says that New Zealand did a much better job than Australia at the time, and that the previous National government introduced measures to seek out the migrants and help them reunite with their families.

On the face of it, New Zealand does not seem to have so much to apologise for, but the minister would do better to seek out the stories of this country's child migrants before deciding whether or not to follow the examples of Australia and Britain. The treatment received here probably was better than in Australia, but families were still torn apart. As Labour leader Phil Goff has said, it would be sensible to listen first and then make a decision.

- © Fairfax NZ News