The facts are plain to see for all Australians that Mr Howard's ignorance and refusal of facts is to blame for hm not apologising. Despite such a large number of Australian politicians obviously on the other side of the debate, Howard and a very small number of followers seem to want to have very little if anything to do with the natives of Australia.

It was on the election night of his second term when Mr Howard stated to the country that reconciliation by the Centenary Federation (next year) was a top priority on his 'to do' list for this ruling term. He accepted what was stated formally in 1991. He said,
"I … want to commit myself very genuinely to the cause of true reconciliation with the Aboriginal people by the centenary of Federation … I think all Australians are united in a determinatoin to achieve it."
Then, being the Prime Minister we are starting to know him as, he backed down on this deadline. He abandoned it saying "it was a mistake" and such a thing should never have been made. He decided that having a deadline is too restrictive, especially for such an important thing. We have, however, been brought up in a society where it is those deadlinesthat guide us and keep us working. If we had no deadlines for school projects no work would be done - we'd never graduate. If we had no deadlines for tax returns no-one would bother. If we have a deadline for something you realise that something should be done now, so that by the time that deadline comes about, we are on target to have the task completed.
Saying this deadline should never have been set is really just saying that Howard doesn't care about reconciliation. He has probably realised that he won't be elected another term so why should he say sorry? He then goes out and publically stated that,
"You do not say sorry for something that you are not personally responsible for."
This is shamefully wrong on Howard's behalf. As Sr Margaret Cassidy wrote in her letter to The Australian last month,
"Every day people are saying 'sorry' to people who have suffered pain and loss. [Sorry is] an expression of sorrow [and] not an admission that we personally have caused that pain. It is simply expressing our empathy with the pain of another."
Mr Howard just seems too scared and ignorant to realise this along with his responsibility as this country's leader. He hasn't done anything to initiate reconciliation, instead he appears to make the rift between white and black Australians wider and deeper than ever before.
Just today (5th April, 2000) there was a letter to the editor in The Age. It was from Aboriginal footballer Micael Long asking questions about how he was going to tell his mother (who had been stolen from her mother) that the stolen generation never happened. She had been forced onto a boat taking her away from her homeland when she had never even seen the ocean before. She had cried herself to sleep. Long's grandmother never saw her daughter again. He says,
"I am part of the stolen generation. It's like dropping a rock in a pool of water and it has a rippling effect, so don't tell me it effects only 10 per cent. No amount of money can replace what your government has done to my family."

Why Mr Howard can't try to close the gap marking differences between Australians and reconcile with the Aborigines? It's one tiny word, "sorry"! Is he saying he isn't regretful? That's what sorry means, regretful. If he stopped listening to the idiots in his government like Senetor John Herron (who heard the church describe what happened to the Aboriginies as "genocide" but, because he ad "seen genocide in Rwanda" and thought it didn't compare to the killing of a few people, he changed his mind) and the 45% of Australians who, when surveyed, were found to be against the draft reconciliation document, maybe he'd start realising that reconciliation is needed.
It is Mr Howard's responsibility as the Australian leader to reconcile the peoples' differences and, therefore, it's his fault when we don't.