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CANBERRA - Calls to compensate Aboriginal people for past wrongs risk undermining public support for the federal government's formal apology to indigenous Australians, Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says.
The coalition has agreed to provide in-principle support for the apology, to be delivered on Wednesday, but is opposed to taxpayer-funded compensation to the stolen generations.
Although Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ruled out compensation, he has foreshadowed increased spending to improve Aboriginal health and education outcomes.
Dr Nelson says he will "absolutely not" support paying direct compensation to indigenous people, such as the $1 billion fund proposed by Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell.
Public support for the apology may evaporate if it led to compensation, he said.
"The important thing here is the apology itself and us saying that we are sorry for these things that happened," Dr Nelson told Fairfax Radio Network today.
"But I don't believe that any sum of money is ever going to compensate any individual or his or her family for being deprived of the direct relationship and love of your mother and/or your father.
"I think these calls for compensation will seriously undermine the goodwill of good-hearted Australians who are prepared to go along with this apology, if not enthusiastically support it."
He reiterated calls for Mr Rudd to make public the wording of the apology.
"Once that's shown to us ... everybody has an opportunity to discuss it, rather than just some sort of surprise show on Wednesday," Dr Nelson said.
"Whether you're an enthusiastic embracer of an apology or you're a bit diffident about it, I think we have the right to be taken into Mr Rudd's confidence."
Dr Nelson said the real challenge was to improve the lot of Aboriginal people in a practical way and an apology would do nothing to achieve that.
"It's interesting that Mr Rudd has said that we need to apparently say sorry before we can actually deal with these very practical measures, as if in some way the two are intimately linked," Dr Nelson said.
"Over 15 years of visiting remote Aboriginal communities, I have never had an Aboriginal person say to me (that) `until the Commonwealth of Australia apologises I can't get on with it'.
"That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
"But also I don't see that there is a direct link between an apology and ... the fact that, as you and I are speaking, an Aboriginal baby born today has only one-third the chance of seeing the age of 65 that your kids and mine will."
The most decisive action to improve indigenous wellbeing was the Howard government's intervention in the Northern Territory last year, he said.
Dr Nelson acknowledged many people felt ambivalent towards the need to apologise.
"But my very strong view is that we do need to say sorry, to apologise for the things that were done in the past, but also to recognise that in many cases they were done with very good intentions," he said.
- AAP
