Key Points
- June 3 2022 marks 30 years since the High Court of Australia decision to overturn the doctrine of 'terra nullius'.
- At the heart of the decision was First Nations land rights activist and Mer (Murray) Island man Eddie Koiki Mabo.
Friday 3 June 2022 marks 30 years since the landmark decision by the High Court of Australia to overturn the doctrine of 'terra nullius' - or "land belonging to no one" - which was declared at the time of European colonisation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occupied the land, spoke their own languages and had their own laws and customs long before the British arrived in 1788, and 'terra nullius' was an attempt by colonisers to give legitimacy to their dispossession of First Nations people.
At the heart of the High Court's decision was First Nations land rights activist and Mer (Murray) Island man Eddie Koiki Mabo (1936-1992), the first-named plaintiff in the case, who is regarded as the "father of native title".
Mabo Day occurs each year at the end of National Reconciliation Week, and is considered to be a day of reflection on what Mr Mabo and the other plaintiffs in the famous court case, which resulted in the overturning of 'terra nullius', achieved.
Following the High Court ruling, Australia’s federal parliament passed the Native Title Act 1993 which established a legal framework for native title claims throughout Australia by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Who was Eddie Koiki Mabo?
“If I die, my kids will not be able to speak my language, if I don’t teach them at this stage.”
Mr Mabo spoke these words at a guest lecture to students at Townsville College of Advanced Education, later incorporated into James Cook University, in Queensland in 1982.
“We must be able to retain our identity and culture,” he went on to say.
A Torres Strait Islander community and land rights campaigner, Mr Mabo was born on the island of Mer (Murray) in 1936.
According to a biography from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), his first language was Meriam, and he grew up immersed in his Meriam culture.
Mr Mabo quickly involved himself in politics and campaigning, becoming a prominent leader for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Queensland.
“He also founded the Aboriginal Legal Service, he founded a black school in Townsville,” Greg McIntyre, Mr Mabo's instruction solicitor on the historic High Court case, told SBS News.
“He worked with the waterside workers in Townsville and he sat in a bar and insisted that he was entitled to be served a drink when Aboriginal people and Islander people were not allowed into bars in the early days.”
According to AIATSIS, Mr Mabo's time working on campus as a gardener at James Cook University was a “turning point” when he learned that he and other Murray Islanders didn’t own the land they had lived on for thousands of years - and that it was Crown land.
Gail Mabo, Mr Mabo's daughter, said these conversations with university historians Henry Reynolds and Noel Loos were where "he got that fire in his belly".
"For him, the whole notion of owning land was the fact that it was handed down, from generation to generation," she told SBS News.
"For him, to have no right to that land, that’s where he got that fire in his belly to go, 'You know what? I’m going to fight this. Because this is not right, we have a right to our land, and to be able to hand it down to our children'."
Mr Mabo went on to give a speech at the university about his people’s beliefs about ownership of land on Mer, where a lawyer suggested a test case to claim land rights through the courts. What followed became known as the ‘Mabo Case’.
Tony McAvoy SC, a Wirdi man and native title barrister, said Mr Mabo was admired for his tenacity and perseverance.
“Eddie's tenacity and perseverance against all the odds, Koiki Mabo, is something that provides inspiration for all of us,” he said.
Wirdi man Tony McAvoy SC. Source: SBS News / Felicity Davey
"I was in awe of everything he did. And just being a child, watching, for me, it was like, ‘how deadly is my dad?’ That’s how I see that man - a man who is wonderful because of everything he has done."
'An emotional fight': The campaign to overturn 'terra nullius'
Mabo Day marks the anniversary of Mr Mabo’s success in overturning the doctrine that Australia was “terra nullius” - meaning land belonging to no-one - at the time of European colonisation.
This declaration had meant the occupation and connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had with the land were not recognised.
The case began on 20 May 1982 when five Meriam people - Eddie Mabo, Reverend David Passi, Sam Passi, James Rice and Celuia Mapo Sale - brought an action against the Queensland state and the Commonwealth in the High Court, claiming ‘native title’ to the Murray Islands. Mr Mabo was the first named plaintiff.
The case ran for 10 years. On 3 June 1992, the High Court upheld the claim, ruling that Australian land was not 'terra nullius' when European settlement occurred, and that Meriam people - the Traditional Owners of the Murray Islands - were “entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of (most of) the lands of the Murray Islands”.
It rejected the doctrine of 'terra nullius'.
A copy of the High Court of Australia 3 June 1992 Mabo ruling. Source: SBS News / Felicity Davey
“It was an emotional fight for him. And of course, as one of his legal representatives, I joined him in that emotion,” Mr McIntyre said.
“When we actually got that title for him, of course, it was a great feeling of elation to have one.”
Mr McIntryre said the impact the decision had on the broader community is “a significant thing, which I think he would have been very proud of”.
“And I'm very proud of him.”
What is the significance of the Mabo ruling?
Robert Tickner, who was minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs at the time under the Keating Labor government, described the 1992 ruling as a “landmark decision”.
“I remember being in the court that day and being bowled over by the enormity of the decision. It was truly a landmark decision that changed Australia for the better,” he said.
“It swept aside that false doctrine of terra nullius, or land belonging to no-one and recognised that not only had Aboriginal people owned this continent but they still had a continuing right of ownership over many parts of the continent.”
Linda Burney, the newly appointed Minister for Indigenous Australians under an Anthony Albanese Labor government, also called it “incredibly significant”.
“I think most people, I certainly remember where I was when it came over the radio,” she told SBS News.
“For the first time in law, terra nullius was debunked and that was crucial.”
The following year, the parliament passed the Native Title Act 1993 to “provide a national system for the recognition and protection of native title and for its co-existence with the national land management system”.
“When the Native Title Act was passed, Australia knew this was a new era, it put meat on the bones of the reconciliation process, because there can't be reconciliation without justice in this country,” Mr Tickner said.
'Where do we go from here?'
Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the landmark decision, Mr Mabo's grandson Kaleb Mabo that Mabo Day is a day for everybody to celebrate - not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“That is why I’ve started to push for this day to become a national public holiday so Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people can recognise it for what it is," Kaleb said.
"It’s the day that white Australia recognised Indigenous Australians, First Nations people, the ones that were here first."
Despite his grandfather's achievements, Kaleb said that there is still much work to be done.
“For me, it’s kind of special but it also brings up the question of what have we got from it and where do we go next as Indigenous people of Australia?” he said.
“What did the abolition of ‘terra nullius’ actually mean and what did it do and mean for Indigenous Australia?
“I guess that’s what this year has really reflected for me. What’s our next step? Where do we go from here?”
'We stand in a better place to move forward together'
For Gail Mabo, her father's achievements "regained the voice of those Indigenous peoples" and "empowered them to move forward as a people".
"Now with that whole recognition, and 30 years on, we stand in a better place to move forward together," she said.
"My father’s legacy is not just for me; it’s for everybody. If we can take a leaf out of his book and become better people, and to acknowledge the wrongs that have been done, and actually acknowledge and move forward together, that would make a better country."
Gail said that for a long time, Australia has taken "baby steps" when it comes to acknowledging its Indigenous peoples.
"Now is the time to lengthen our stride, to make things move," she said.
She is heartened by recent developments -, which calls for a constitutionally-enshrined Indigenous Voice to Parliament and the establishment of a Makarrata Commission.
"We are at the best place [it] could be," she said, adding she believes people are now informed with a greater understanding about "what Indigenous Australians want to achieve".
"People have grown up with Mabo as a voice that has been there, but they have not understood. But now with this time, 30 years on ... people can actually say, 'we understand that now, and we will stand alongside you, and acknowledge Mabo - the man who abolished terra nullius'.
"For me, the hope is that we’ll have a better Australia come the time of my grandchildren and great grandchildren."
With additional reporting by Sarah Collard .
