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PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd says this week`s parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations will remove a "blight on the nation`s soul" and has the overwhelming support of Australians.

Mr Rudd today announced the Government would bring more than 100 members of the Stolen Generations to Canberra for the national apology, to be delivered in parliament on Wednesday.

Among the guests will be first generation survivors, selected by the Stolen Generations Alliance and the National Sorry Day Committee to best represent their fellow survivors.

Mr Rudd said he believed there was an "overwhelming desire" among most Australians for the apology, the wording of which is still being finalised just three days out from the historic event.

"It`s never going to be a unity ticket, a whole lot of people out there have raised objections and concerns," Mr Rudd told the Nine Network.

`We need to act`

"But I think this is a blight on the nation`s soul, I think we need to act."

Mr Rudd revealed he yesterday met with an elderly member of the stolen generations and spent about an hour and a half just listening to her story.

"I wanted to do that before sitting down and framing my own speech to the parliament this week," he said.

"I wanted to speak directly to someone who had been through those experiences, in her case in the early 1930s, when as a young child she was taken, stolen, from her family and her community."

Mick Dodson, who with former High Court judge Sir Ronald Wilson authored the 1997 Bringing Them Home report which called for a national parliamentary apology, has also been invited to attend the event. Sir Wilson`s widow Lady Wilson is also expected to attend.

Other high profile invitees include Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton, tennis great Evonne Goolagong-Cawley and former Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Stanley.

Indigenous footballers Dean Widders, Michael Long, Matt Bowen, Greg Inglis and David Peachey are also expected to attend, as are business leaders such as Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon.

`There are more pressing concerns`

Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Tony Abbott, who until recently opposed an apology, today reiterated he thought there were more pressing concerns in indigenous affairs.

"But the fact is this apology is going to happen, I think there is some potential for this apology to be a significant milestone towards more complete reconciliation," Mr Abbott told Sky News.

"But we`ll be getting behind it in a way which acknowledges our true history, that`s to say the good things that happened as well as unfortunate things that happened.

"Yes, some kids were stolen and this is shameful but many were helped and some were rescued, and I think we need to be honest about that."

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