Kevin Rudd’s Sorry speech is one of the best-written speeches in Australian political history. It may well be the best speech ever written on the subject of post-colonial reconciliation in any nation.

The 1998 Canadian Statement of Reconciliation is almost as good, but it lacks the precision of Rudd’s moral and emotional analysis and continually dances around specifics, for example mentioning the tragedy of Louis Riel without saying anything about it other than that it was “sad.” It was more than sad, it was judicially-sanctioned murder for political purposes. Riel was no saint; he had no qualms about exercising unforgiveable violence and may have been clinically insane for much of his life. It seems the Canadian statement was determined to avoid the complexities of the case, but in my opinion this is a mistake. Far better to address the complexities, even if in passing, than to leave them unacknowledged and unresolved like half-chewed bread.

The 1988 American apology to interned Japanese citizens and Aleutians is a Senate Bill and is correspondingly dry and legislative in tone and unlikely to rouse anyone to passion. On the plus side, the bill established a $1.3 billion trust fund to recompense the victims — and even more impressively, the trust fund was charged with actively seeking out eligible persons to give them compensation.

I can’t find the 1992 South African statement on apartheid.

I suggest that future parliamentarians consider moving Australia Day, currently 26 January to celebrate the landing of the First Fleet (an historical event of obvious divisiveness), either to this day (and wouldn’t it be something to have Valentine’s Day as a public holiday?) or to the date of the 1967 referendum (27 May).