Harper used Howard's speech

A Conservative staff member resigned and apologized Tuesday for writing a speech read by Stephen Harper in 2003 as leader of the Opposition that plagiarized from an address days earlier by then Australian prime minister John Howard.

Owen Lippert apologised for being "overzealous in copying segments of another world leader's speech" and said his bosses at the time were unaware he had done so.

The apology came hours after Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae accused Harper of plagiarizing from the Howard speech.

Take it from someone who lived in Australia at the height of the War on Terror, John Howard was nothing but a puppet of the Bush administration, there is no doubt that Stephen Harper is just as much a puppet.

Get this guy out of office...and now!

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Fair Dinkum, Kevin Rudd

One of the (many) political items that got my goat when I lived in Australia in 2002 was then Aussie Prime Minister John Howard and his government's (as well as previous administrations') refusal to acknowledge the atrocities that were done against the Aboriginal peoples of Australia during that country's formative years.

It's really great to see and hear current PM Kevin Rudd attempting to make amends with the Aboriginals.

"Today, the parliament has come together to right a great wrong," Rudd said.

"We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians."

The parliamentary apology comes 11 years after a major report into past assimilation policies -- where Aboriginal children were taken from their families and assimilated in white households -- found between one in three and one in 10 aboriginal children had been taken from their families between 1910 and 1970.

The report urged a national apology to those affected, known as the Stolen Generations, but at the time, Howard rejected the finding and offered only a statement of regret.

Rudd made the apology the first item of parliamentary business for his centre-left Labor government, which won power in November last year, ending almost 12 years of conservative rule.

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