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CANBERRA - Kevin Rudd is learning the hard realities of indigenous politics as he prepares to launch his first Parliament as Prime Minister with an apology for sufferings inflicted upon Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
Rudd will deliver the apology on February 13, as the new Parliament's first item of business.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the final wording had not yet been decided, but the apology would be made on behalf of the Government without attributing guilt to the current generation of Australians.
Aboriginal activists are planning to protest outside Parliament House as the apology is delivered, despite the decision by Rudd to lift a national "sorry" to the head of the new Labor Government's packed agenda.
He will also face criticism from the Liberal Opposition - which is itself divided over the apology so long refused by former Leader John Howard - and increasingly strident calls for financial compensation.
Indigenous groups have also called for lifetime free private health and medical care for victims of the Stolen Generations of Aborigines, taken from their families as children and raised in white society, often as domestic menials. And the wording of the apology will be crucial to its acceptance, with many indigenous groups demanding that it extend beyond the Stolen Generations to embrace the much broader sufferings of indigenous Australia since European occupation.
Michael Anderson, spokesman for the 16 clans comprising the Gumilaroi nation of northwest New South Wales and southwest Queensland, said that for an apology to be meaningful, Rudd needed to say why the Government was apologising.
"If Rudd and his Labor Government are serious, the detail of a sorry statement must include the true horror of the genocide that was planned against the Aboriginal peoples and what was carried out," said Anderson, whose grandmother was taken from her family in 1914.
But the prospect of an apology based on what Howard dismissed as a "black armband" view of history has been rejected by Opposition leader Brendan Nelson, despite significant support within his Liberal Party.
Nelson criticised the priority accorded to the apology, saying that Rudd faced more urgent issues, and warning that a federal "sorry" would open the Government to massive compensation claims.
States and Territories have already apologised, with motions proposed by leaders including former Liberal Premiers Jeff Kennett of Victoria and Richard Court of Western Australia, and former Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Kate Carnell.
There have since been only three compensation claims decided - with only one successful - although Tasmania voluntarily established a A$5 million ($5.7 million) fund for more than 100 victims of the Stolen Generation.
But Nelson said an apology would establish a precedent for claims against future generations.
His claims have been rejected by Aboriginals who are also furious that Rudd has ruled out any compensation, which they regard as essential for an apology to have real meaning.
"We are incensed that Minister Macklin has ruled out categorically the payment of compensation," a group of indigenous academics and women prominent in health, legal and Aboriginal community affairs said.
Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action chairperson Les Malezer welcomed Rudd's decision to both apologise for indigenous suffering and to include in the new Parliament's opening ceremony next month the traditional owners of the land on which Parliament House stands.
But he said he would be among protesters outside Parliament House about the failures of successive Australian governments to acknowledge indigenous rights - especially self-determination - and their failures to provide redress for injustices.
Rudd expects opposition and criticism, but said an apology was required to build the "bridge of respect" between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia needed for long-term Aboriginal development.
