And before anyone leaps in to accuse me of politicaal bias I would like to point out that I am not criticising Mr Abbott - unless he wrote that speech himself - I am criticising his script wrters for doing a sloppy job.

Yet for two centuries – with fragrant [sic] exceptions, of course – Australians had collectively failed to show to Aboriginal people the personal generosity and warmth of welcome that we have habitually extended to the stranger in our midst.”

If I had written that sentence, my first publisher - from whose stern pen I learnt the art of self-editing -  would have put a big red cross beside it and stuck  a post-it note under it with comment "I'm not sure what you are trying to say here". He would have drawn a big red circle round 'the stranger in our midst' with another post-it note note saying "this is a piece of literary pretension that  might have had it's place in an 18th century sermon but it is totally inappropriate in the context of modern day Australia. He would also have drawn a red circle round the word 'flagrant' and written above it WHAT!!!

And I would have gone away, had a long hard think and rewritten it something like this:

Yet for two centuries – with notable (or maybe happy)  exceptions, of course – Australians had collectively failed to show to Aboriginal people the same personal generosity and warmth of welcome that we have habitually extended to strangers.