Kevin Rudd's apology

I'm really not trying to trivialise yesterday's events in Canberra, but the following arrived in my inbox today, and raised a chuckle, to say the least.


AUSTRALIA APOLOGY TO BRITAIN

Kevin Rudd's apology represents a break from previous policies

The Australian government has made a formal apology for the past wrongs caused by successive governments on the British people.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised in parliament to all Britons for ignorant attitudes and prejudices that have "inflicted bad jokes with consequent irritation and boredom on the proud nation to whom we have been unable to admit we owe everything. "

He singled out the myth of the “Lucky Country” which has convinced generations of Australians that they do not actually live in a water and culturally starved desert has given them free reign to view the UK as somehow everything they are not.

The apology, beamed live around the country on TV, was met with incredulity by some Australians for whom “apology” is a very long word.

But some Britons say it should have been accompanied with compensation for their suffering. Campaign groups have pointed out how Australia's whole relationship with the UK has been determined by Mel Gibson's fevered imagination rather than historical fact.

'Indignity and degradation'

In a motion passed unanimously by Australian MPs on Wednesday morning, Mr Rudd acknowledged the "past mistreatment" of the founders of the Commonwealth of Nations, "For the indiginity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry".

Roo up tree

In other news, it has been reported that a Ballarat man has seen a roo up a tree.