For Australia, today was about The Apology. A speech made in parliament, by the prime minister, apologising for years of mistreatment and hurt inflicted upon aboriginal families over the hundred years leading up to 1970. The Stolen Generations. Families separated so that their children wouldn't "have to" grow up aboriginal.

There's a lot of history there, a lot of justifications at the time and after the fact, for why these actions were carried out. What hasn't happened in the intervening years, until today, is that the government said "sorry". Today, the Rudd Labour Government delivered the apology and, importantly, used that word. Sorry. A word that the previous government and Prime Minister refused, unambiguously, to use.

The apology itself was quite well written. It reads well and will be a good statement for the future. The delivery of the apology, the speech, wasn't as great. To me, Kevin Rudd is not a good public speaker, his oratorical style is not particularly inspiring or commanding. Still, today's event was a ceremony, a time to put the text on record and see the man bearing the leadership say the words. The delivery doesn't diminish the significance of the moment. The text and the fact that the apology was delivered will outlive the video.

Sadly, the event was diminished by the bipartisan nature, when opposition leader Brenden Nelson stood up to deliver his apology. His apology was very close to "I've been told I should say sorry and I'm sorry I have to be here. I didn't do it." He completely missed the point. This wasn't a wiping clean of the slate, or an assigning of blame to individuals. It was an acceptance of the consequences of a national policy that has caused long-term damage to the native inhabitants of this land. Trying to spin the impact as Nelson did was unworthy of the moment. Better that he said nothing at all, given that his party, with a dozen years in government, of which he has been a senior member for many years, did previous little in the past, certainly not up to the point of apologising on behalf of the nation (the previous prime minister, John Howard, once expressed "personal regret" that events happened, but that wasn't what people wanted to hear from somebody acting as the nation's leader).

I am highly cynical of the effectiveness of federal politics and not a particularly fervent citizen; it's simply a fact of life that I have to be a citizen of one country. Heavens knows I am not a Kevin Rudd fan and suspect his government will not be a lot better than the Liberals over the coming years. However, acts like today (at least the apology portion), are a good reminder of why I'm also not entirely ashamed to be Australian. For the federal government of the day to finally get over this hurdle, acknowledge that they are the current bearers of the mantle of responsibility and accountability, whose predecessors implemented some exceedingly poor policy with negative impacts right down to today (social workers now find it hard to intervene in genuine cases because of the resemblance of these actions to those precipitating the Stolen Generation)... for that to eventually take place, is a huge step. That was the partisan-less moment of the day, not the opportunity given to the opposition to also speak. There will be people calling for monetary compensation and other sorts of retribution. However, that's not going to correct history. Working out direct and indirect consequences and trying to right them is terribly difficult and a large cheque cannot do it. There will be debate about what could have been for months to come, I'm sure. Not everybody, whether of European, Asian or Australian aboriginal descent, will agree with what happened today. But all of that is by the wayside. The point is that this quite reasonable step, this thing that was made into an insurmountable mountain by previous governments refusal to step up, has been addressed and can now become something that happened and is not the elephant-size roadblock in the room.

I didn't really know what to expect today when I woke up to watch the speech (I am not a morning person; it required an effort). However, I decided to watch because it was something I'd wanted to see happen for many years. I remember discussions around tables when I was at University back in the late 80's about why the government of the day didn't have the spine to address the issue, I'm glad I watched this morning. The media audio grabs and summary cannot do justice to watching it in full and it was a rare moment when I was proud of what the government was doing. I don't know what the effects of today will be in five or ten years time. Maybe we'll be no better off, nationwide, than now. Maybe things will change. It's time for everybody to stop relying on the past as a crutch, a cross or a weapon and address the situation as it exists today.

Topics: home, life, politics, thinking, writing

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If there's one household chore I do regularly that I hate more than emptying the vacuum cleaner dust bag, I have completely repressed what it would be. General household dust and dirt, by it's very nature, is lightweight and sticks to everything. It seems to be impossible to empty the vacuum without it going all over me, the balcony, the neighbour's courtyard beneath me and possibly every house within a three block radius.

I need to get better cleaning technology. Or pay somebody to do this stuff. Cleaning my apartment shouldn't make me this grumpy (and grimey).

Thankyou. That is all.

Topics: home

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For a few months now, I have been thinking about getting a decent electronic keyboard. Five years ago, I used to play the piano a lot. These days, I no longer have a piano and I am grossly out of practice. Plus, there are some things I want to play around with where a musical background would be nice.

Last month turned out to be a bit better than expected, financially, for work, so I decided that I would use some of the extra to buy a reward. I've been doing the rounds of some local music shops and looking at manuals and reviews on the web. Just had never gotten around to walking into a shop, putting down the credit card and saying "fill her up, please". This morning, I gave in to temptation and bought a nice little Casio PX-310. It seemed to be at the right point when balancing functionality (lots of sounds and a full size keyboard, primarily; all the rhythms and recording space isn't really necessary for me) and price.

88 keys, "fully weighted", says the manual, but I'm not sure that is completely correct: it feels a little light, but much better than a non-weighted keyboard. I'm a happy camper.

Since I had the camera out and was in the room I use as my office, here's the uglier side of the story: the mess that is my computer area. Putting it here might shame me into actually doing something about this. There are disadvantages to living alone. One being that things like this slip from very tidy (my preference), to a little messy to blow-torch territory without anybody smacking me around the head about it.

Topics: home, music

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