After 12 years of a conservative Australian administration that was markedly hostile to indigenous rights and its own Aboriginal populations, the new labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took a dramatic step by issuing an apology at the opening session of Parliament on February 13. The apology, issued by Rudd himself, was, in fact, the opening item of business for Parliament. Rudd aimed his apology at the Stolen Generations, the more than 50,000 Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their parents and raised by white families in an effort to wipe out their culture.