For 30 years Aborigines have camped in a clump of tents and vans within sight of Australia's parliament waiting to hear one word from the politicians inside sorry. The Aboriginal tent embassy has been on the lawns outside Australia's original parliament house for so long it has been listed officially as a site of special cultural significance. That is as close as indigenous Australians have come to a formal apology for the appalling mistreatment suffered by Aborigines during 213 years of white settlement.
Smoke rises in wisps from a small campfire beside the tent embassy on a cool, crisp autumn day.
The United Nations and human rights groups have criticized Australia for its treatment of its native people, who make up about 400,000 of the 19 million population. But Aborigines are still waiting for the formal apology they regard as the first and most important step towards meaningful reconciliation between black and white Australia. Australia's Labour opposition, which needs a swing of less than one per cent to win office, has indicated it will apologize. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, Howard's long-time boss and the social conscience of Australia's conservatives, agrees.