Australia's Rudd to apologise to Aborigines

The Australian government will on Wednesday apologise to Aborigines who were taken from their families as children, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd saying today the apology was unfinished business for the nation.

The move comes 11 years after a landmark report into the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families under past assimilation policies, which recommended a national apology to what is known as the "Stolen Generation".

"I think this is a blight on the nation's soul," Rudd told Australian television today, adding it was time for a new era of mutual respect between Aborigines and non-indigenous Australians.

Rudd will deliver the apology in parliament, making the historic gesture the first piece of parliamentary business for his Labor government, which won power in November and ended almost 12 years of conservative rule.

The 1997 Bringing Them Home report examined the impact of past assimilation policies on the nation's Aborigines, and detailed stories of young children being taken from their families in remote communities to be raised in white households.

The report was unable to determine exact numbers involved, but said between one-in-three and one-in-10 indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities between 1910 and 1970.

The report called for a national apology, guarantees the old policies would not happen again, and urged the government to pay compensation to the families affected.