''We reflect on their past mistreatment, we reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our national history.

''The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page.''

Mr Rudd said the apology was meant in the ''true spirit of reconciliation, to open a new chapter in the history of this great land, Australia''. ''Our nation Australia has reached such a time and that is why the Parliament is today here assembled,'' he said. ''To deal with this unfinished business of the nation.

''To remove a great stain from the nation's soul and in the true spirit of reconciliation to open a new chapter in the history of this great land Australia.'' While today's formal apology said ''sorry'' three times, Mr Rudd's speech also offered apologies to the stolen generations.

''As Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry,'' he said. ''On behalf of the Government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the Parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification.'' Mr Rudd told the emotional story of an elderly indigenous woman, part of the stolen generations, who he visited a few days ago.

''An elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s full of life, full of funny stories despite what has happened in her life's journey,'' the prime minister said. Mr Rudd said his friend told him of the love and warmth she felt while growing up with her family in an Aboriginal community just outside Tennant Creek.

In the early 1930s, at the age of four, she remembers being taken away by ''the welfare men''. ''Her family had feared that day and had dug holes in the creek bank where the children could run and hide,'' Mr Rudd said. They brought a truck, two white men and an Aboriginal stockman who found the hiding children and herded them into the truck.

She remembered her mother clinging onto the side of the truck, with tears flowing down her cheeks as it drove off. She never saw her mother again.

After living in Alice Springs for a ''few years'', government policy changed and the young girl was handed over to the missions.

''The kids were simply told to line up in three lines ... those on the left were told they had become Catholics, those in the middle, Methodist and those on the right, Church of England,'' Mr Rudd said. ''That's how the complex questions of post-reformation theology were resolved in the Australian outback in the 1930s. It was as crude as that.''



She didn't leave the island mission until she was 16 when she went to Darwin to work as a ''domestic''. When the Prime Minister asked his friend what of her story she wanted told she answered: ''All mothers are important.''

''Families, keeping them together is very important, it's a good thing that you are surrounded by love and that love is passed down the generations - that's what gives you happiness.'' Mr Rudd said the woman's experience was ''only one story, there are thousands of them, tens of thousands of them''.

Mr Rudd said the stories ''cry out'' to be heard and ''cry out'' for an apology. ''Instead from the nation's Parliament there has been a stony and stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade. ''As of today the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.''

Addressing critics of a formal apology who argued that the stolen generations were a historical anomaly who did not require an apology, Mr Rudd said the stolen generations ''are not intellectual curiosities, they are human beings''. Mr Rudd also addressed the argument, often forwarded by his predecessor John Howard, that a government cannot apologise for actions of a past government's policy.

''Let us remember the fact that the forced removal of Aboriginal children was happening as late as the early 1970's, the early 1970's is not a point in remote antiquity. ''The laws that our Parliament enacted made the stolen generations possible. ''This is not a black armband view of history, it's just the truth, the cold uncomfortable truth.''

Mr Rudd called for the Opposition join the Government in forming the equivalent a war cabinet to tackled indigenous issues. ''I therefore propose a joint policy commission to be led by the leader of the opposition and myself,'' he said.

The Prime Minister said the commission would first develop and implement an effective housing strategy for remote communities during the next five years. If that was successful the commission would then work on the constitutional recognition of first Australians. ''The nation is calling on us the politicians to move beyond our infantile bickering, our point scoring, our mindlessly partisan politics and elevate this one, at least this one, area of national responsibility to a rare position beyond the partisan divide.''

"Let us turn this next page together.'' As Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson began speaking, some people in Parliament's Great Hall, outside the parliamentary chamber, turned their backs on the large screen on which the speech was being televised.

They began clapping and yelling ''shame'', and some started to walk out. Dr Nelson said he rose to speak ''strongly'' in support of the apology. ''Today our nation crosses a threshold. We formally offer an apology, we say sorry to those Aboriginal people forcibly removed from their families through the first seven decades of the 20th century,'' Dr Nelson said.

''In doing so, we reach from within ourselves to our past, those whose lives connect us to it, and in deep understanding of its importance to our future.''

Dr Nelson urged other Australians to place themselves in the the shoes of the stolen generations and see the issue through their eyes ''with decency and respect''.

He called on Australians to focus on the contemporary problems of their indigenous counterparts. ''Spare a thought for the real, immediate, seemingly intractable and disgraceful circumstances in which many indigenous Australians find themselves today,'' he said. These included lower life expectancy, alcohol abuse, welfare without responsibilities, corrupt management of resources, nepotism, political buckpassing, lack of home ownership, under-policing and tolerance by authorities of neglect and abuse of children.

''All combine to see too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living lives of existential aimlessness,'' Dr Nelson said.



Closing his speech, Dr Nelson said: ''We honour those in our past who have suffered - many of whom are here today - and all who have made sacrifices for us, by the way we live our lives and shape our nation. ''Today we recommit to do so as one people - we are sorry.''



Like Mr Rudd, Dr Nelson received a standing ovation following his speech.

There was a palpable surge of emotion as MPs on both sides of Parliament and hundreds in the public gallery leapt collectively to their feet, clapping loudly. Applause again erupted as Mr Rudd and Dr Nelson moved to greet guests, including Aboriginal leaders and members of the stolen generations, seated in the distinguished visitors' gallery on the floor of the chamber. The MPs on the floor turned and clapped towards the people who included many members of the stolen generations and their families.

From early in the morning a long queue formed at the main entrance and crowds gathered outside the building around giant screens. Carrying Aboriginal flags and decked in black, red and yellow shirts, the throng carried with it a palpable feeling of expectation and relief.



Among those who came to the capital were athlete Nova Peris-Kneebone who brought her daughters to represent her sick grandmother who, as a child, was taken from her family. As she approached the building, she said she was steeling herself for a flood of emotion when she finally heard the word "sorry''.



Mr Rudd said that until Australians confronted the truth about the stolen generations there would always be a shadow over them.



This morning, on a cool and cloudy day in the capital, that shadow began to lift.

with Leo Shanahan and AAP



