AustLit

On 13 February 2008, the newly-installed Australian Prime Minister of the day, Kevin Rudd, made a now-landmark speech saying ‘Sorry’ to the Stolen Generations. Symbolically, the Apology was considered ‘a turning-point in the process of reconciliation’ (Kossew 171), a way of righting a historical wrong that would lead to a new chapter in the nation’s history. We can compare this speech to statements made by Rudd on his brief return to leadership prior to the September 2013 elections, when he introduced a strict refugee resettlement policy whereby all refugees arriving to Australia by boat were to be resettled in Papua New Guinea, and none would be allowed to settle in Australia, even after their claims for asylum had been processed. Despite widespread criticism from members of his own party, Rudd refused to back down over his hardline refugee policy. He repeatedly said that he made ‘no apology’ for the fact that he had to make some tough decisions (Uhlmann; Scarr and Jones). Ostensibly the policy was to stop people perishing on the treacherous journey from Indonesia to Australia in unseaworthy boats but it was also clearly a political manoeuvre in an effort to appeal to more conservative forces in a last-ditch attempt to win an unwinnable election. Since then, Rudd’s political opponents have made similar statements of being ‘unapologetic’ for their own asylum seeker policies (Borello; Whyte). It is this period of Australian cultural and political life that I refer to as ‘post-apology’ (Introduction)