Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has delivered a historic apology to the country's Aboriginal community.
In the first act of parliament on Wednesday, he apologised to the Stolen Generations - young Aboriginal children taken from their parents in a policy of assimilation which lasted from the 19th century to the late 1960s.
ListenListen to Kevin Rudd's apology
Some of those gathered in parliament wept at the word they have waited years to hear: "sorry". The speech was watched on giant screens in cities, towns, parks and schools all over Australia.
The BBC's Nick Bryant spoke to Mark Bin Bakar, from the Stolen Generations Alliance, outside the parliament.
ListenListen to Mark Bin Bakar
Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter are two of Australia's best known musicians, and both members of the Stolen Generations.
ListenListen to Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter
Professor Mick Dodson is director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies at the Australian National University, and was one of the key authors of the 1997 'Bringing Them Home' report on the Stolen Generations.
The World Today's Julian Keane asked him for his reaction.
The apology is not supported by all Australians. Opinion polls suggest around 30% are against it.
Senator Barnaby Joyce, from the conservative National Party, has in the past said that an apology would be empty and rhetorical.
Nick Bryant asked him if anything he had heard today had changed his mind.
ListenListen to Senator Barnaby Joyce
Even in the Aboriginal community, not everyone is so pleased with Kevin Rudd's apology.
Nick Bryant spoke to some who believe it is too little, too late.
ListenListen to Nick Bryant's report
Australia's 460,000 Aborigines make up 2% of the population and are the country's most disadvantaged group.
They have higher rates of infant mortality, drug abuse, alcoholism and unemployment than the rest of the population.
Wayne Bergmann is executive director of the Kimberley Land Council: a community organisation which works with traditional land owners in the far northern part of Western Australia.
He says there is still much more that the new government could do:
ListenListen to Wayne Bergmann
Australia is of course not the only country where the indigenous inhabitants have been badly treated by later settlers.
Claudia Andujar is a campaigner for tribal rights in Brazil, who has a long involvement with the Yanomami tribe.
Phil Fontaine is National Chief of the body representing native Indians in Canada.
The World Today's George Arney started by asking Phil Fontaine whether native Canadians had suffered anything comparable.
ListenListen to the discussion
First broadcast on the 12th and 13th of February
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