In my duties as a JP some months ago I had to witness a Stat Dec.  When I queried the person, as I’m obliged to, he told me he was putting in a claim for compensation for mistreatment under the care of Queensland government departments when he was an orphan.

The basis of the declaration?

He was forced to have cold showers – lots of them.

I resisted the urge to hug and console him for this heinous abuse and while sitting there watching him apply his signature I wondered whether I shouldn’t have a chat with the Army.

Not to say, of course, that all stories are as lightweight but I have trouble seeing value from politicians apologising for sins of the past.  The aboriginies are no better off for all the wailing, gnashing of teeth and breast beating that Rudd visited on  us early in his campaign to become the Statesman of the Free World and I doubt if the orphans will benefit either.

If there are those, and I know there are, who gather strength from this weeks apology then I wish them well and trust life now has some closure even though I can’t imagine how, or for that matter, why.

I will leave the last word to FW Anning of Ascot Qld who wrote in this morning’s The Australian;

I live in fear that I will be the last person in Australia to receive an apology from Kevin Rudd.