And, no, they they don't get their continent back, either.

But, that's not the point. The point is that all the white folks in Australian politics feel really good about themselves today. The Washington Post reports:

In a historic vote that supporters said would open a new chapter in Australian race relations, lawmakers on Wednesday unanimously adopted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's motion to apologize to Aborigines on behalf of all citizens. ...

The apology is directed at tens of thousands of Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children under assimilation policies that were not abandoned until the middle of the last century. ...

The apology ends years of divisive debate and a decade of refusals by the conservative government that lost November's elections.

Rudd received a standing ovation from lawmakers and from scores of Aborigines and dignitaries invited to witness the event. Many wiped away tears.

Rudd ruled out compensation, however ...

This popular "Stolen Generations" topic was the subject of Philip Noyce's acclaimed 2002 movie "Rabbit-Proof Fence" about three half-white girls in the 1930s who are forcibly taken from their loving, caring Aboriginal communities by a racist Australian official (played by Kenneth Branagh) and put into boarding schools, from which they run away to go back home by following Australia's long rabbit-proof fence that divides agricultural land from waste land..

What possible reason besides genocidal racism might Australian authorities have had for taking children away from the custody of their Aboriginal mothers?

Obviously, none whatsoever. Don't even think about anything you've ever learned about the home life of Aborigines. Force yourself not to think the word Alchoholism. Don't think about why Britney Spears lost custody of her children, either. That had to be pure racism, too.

If any explanation other than racial genocide even flits across your mind, then you're a genocidal racist.

The bizarrely ironic thing is that the star of "Rabbit-Proof Fence," an illiterate 11-14 year old half-Aborigine girl named Everlyn Sampi, hated working on Noyce's grueling movie and kept running away. She'd be found and returned to Noyce.

When it was over, Noyce, who had grown fond of his unruly star, became alarmed at the fate awaiting her if she returned to her alcoholism and sexual abuse-stricken community. So, like the evil Branagh character in his movie, he enrolled her in ... a boarding school. Noyce mused, "I found myself thinking, ”I have to look after her. She can live with us. I’ll send her to school."

But, she didn't like Noyce's boarding school and, just like the character she played in the movie, left for home.

Australian columnist Andrew Bolt has the instructive story of Noyce and his star here, and historian Keith Windschuttle puts it in larger perspective in the New Criterion here.