Embassies

This will be my last post from our recent holiday in Canberra - a slide show of some of the foreign embassies in the city.

Inside Parliament House

Australia's federal government has two groups of elected members. 

Australia is divided into electoral districts of approximately equal numbers of people. A person elected by the majority of voters in that district becomes a member of the House of Representatives. It has 150 members.

The House of Representatives chamber

The second group of elected members belong to the Senate. There are 76 senators; 12 from each state and 2 each from the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

The Senate chamber

A good overview about Australia's Parliament can be found here.

We're sorry

Yesterday Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, made history by apologizing for the actions of past governments in relation to the treatment of indigenous Australians.

The historic event was telecast live, and in Adelaide it was shown on a big screen on the banks of the River Torrens to a large gathering of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

He tabled a motion in parliament apologizing to Australia's Indigenous peoples, particularly the Stolen Generations and their families and communities, for laws and policies which had 'inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.' The apology included a proposal for a policy commission to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in 'life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.' (Quote from http://www.acn.net.au/articles/sorry/)