A 'sorry' budget - about $3 billion

"So therefore I don't think that Kevin Rudd is going to deliver on Indigenous affairs at all."

Mr Quartermaine was obviously referring to the interview Rudd gave to 3AW’s Neil Mitchell when asked if he’d say “sorry” to Indigenous Australians if he became Prime Minister.

Rudd: Well, the substance of it will be sorry, apology, but frankly if you ask me for the precise form of language …

Mitchell: No, I'm asking for that one word, because this is where the Prime Minister has been targeted. Will you use the word sorry?

Rudd: Yeah, I said in the debate against the Prime Minister at the beginning of the campaign that were we elected to form the next government of Australia, I will as Prime Minister of the country of course express an apology, and I make no bones with that.

Mitchell: But the Prime Minister has already done that. Will you say sorry?

Rudd: Well, apology is sorry, it's the same thing.

Interestingly Rudd has stated in recent days that his government will make a formal apology to Indigenous Australians early in its first term. "It will be early in the parliamentary term," Mr Rudd said. "We will frame it in a consultative fashion with communities and that may take some time." His deputy Julia Gillard made the same pledge earlier, saying it was Labor policy to say "sorry".

In an unexpected change to the staid views of John Howard, and perhaps a pleasant sign of things to come, Liberal leadership hopeful Malcolm Turnbull, speaking on ABC radio, has backed the Labor Government’s moves to say “sorry” to Indigenous Australians.

Mr Turnbull says John Howard’s failure to say sorry was a mistake. "Clearly we should have said sorry then," he said. "Unquestionably that was an error I'd say, about a friend, John Howard. I think John got himself into a bit of a semantic tangle there. And you know, getting into semantics about regret versus sorry, that's a waste of time. But having said that it's one thing to say sorry, you should do that, but the critical thing is getting the substance right."

Mr Howard offered his "deep and sincere regret" for past wrongs against the Aboriginal community but baulked at saying "sorry".

Mr Rudd is under pressure to use the symbolically-important word but says he is yet to decide on the exact wording of his statement.