[3] Howard's position was that there was nothing for which the current generation of Australians had nothing to say sorry for, and that an apology would acknowledge inter-generational guilt, with the wrongs of the past being judged by contemporary standards, so would not agree to including the word in the motion.
[3] On the afternoon of Thursday, 26 August 1999, Prime Minister John Howard rose to deliver the Motion as follows:[6][4] I move: That this House: After the motion was proposed by Senator John Hill,[7] Senator John Faulkner proposed an amendment on behalf of the Labor Party, stating that the Parliament: "unreservedly apologises to Indigenous Australians for the injustice they have suffered, and for the hurt and trauma that many Indigenous people continue to suffer as a consequence of that injustice; and calls for the establishment of appropriate processes to provide justice and restitution to members of the Stolen Generation through consultation, conciliation and negotiation rather than requiring Indigenous Australians to engage in adversarial litigation in which they are forced to relive the pain and trauma of their past suffering".
[3] Although contemporaneously reported in international media as an "apology", the refusal to include the word "sorry" in the Parliamentary Motion of Reconciliation became a subject of considerable debate and controversy in Australia.
[3] The opposition Labor Party, Kim Beazley, said that Aboriginal children were still being removed during the lifetimes of many Australians still alive, and that Parliament needed to declare that it was sorry.
His brother, Pat Dodson, former chair of CAR, and nine leaders of Aboriginal Land Councils in northern Australia, jointly condemned the motion.