Eddie Koiki Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander, known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights and for the landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that overturned the legal doctrine of terra nullius ('land belonging to nothing, no one') which characterised Australian law with regards to land and title. At: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/property-rights-will-help-economic-development-of-indigenous-australians/story-e6frg6z6-1227365821530 (viewed 3 June 2015), [4] T Calma, Native Title Report 2005, Australian Human Rights Commission, 2005, p82. They reflect the period in which they were created and are not the views of the National Archives. From 1973-1983 he established and became director of the Black Community School in Townsville. 1992 High Court Mabo Case Decision No. 2 | Australia's migration This service may include material from Agence France-Presse (AFP), APTN, Reuters, AAP, CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced. A case was made, and took 10 years to reach a decision. A panel of judges at the High Court ruled that Aboriginal people were the rightful custodians of the land. Suggested answer: While working as a grounds keeper at James Cook University in Townsville, Eddie learnt about Australian land ownership laws. Even though these rights have been watered down over the years, they have enabled us to reach a point where we now own nearly a third of the entire Australian continent and I am told approximately 54% of places like the Northern Territory. Mabo was a Torres Strait islander from Mer (Murray Island), off Australia's north-east coast. In 1959, he moved to mainland Queensland, working on pearling vessels and as a labourer. I stand here proud to bring a message from my Elders. In his historic speech at Sydney's Redfern Park, then Prime Minister Paul Keaing said: "By doing away with the bizarre conceit that this continent had no owners prior to the settlement of Europeans, Mabo establishes a fundamental truth and lays the basis for justice." In 1981, Eddie Mabo delivered a speech at James Cook University in Queensland, where he challenged the widely accepted belief of ownership and inheritance of land on Murray Island. Eddie Mabo - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help JCU celebrates the history-making Mabo decision with the long establishedEddie Koiki Mabo Lecture Series, an annual public commemorative presentation by a prominent person who has made a significant contribution to contemporary Australian society. Eddie Mabo's legal pursuit of these issues resulted in one of the most significant legal cases in Australian history, in that it completely overturned the idea of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) and challenged traditionally held beliefs about how Australia came into being, and about ownership of land. In some ways our systems of governance is a defining feature of the oldest living culture on this planet. In the Shire of . According to accounts of the conversation, the two scholarly figures looked at each other and then, delicately, told Mabo that he didn't own the land and that it was Crown land. In his book Why Weren't We Told?, Reynolds describes the talks they had regarding Mabo's people's rights to their lands, on Murray Island, in the Torres Strait. At the 1981 James Cook University Land Rights Conference Eddie Mabo made a passionate speech about land ownership and ancestral inheritance in the Murray Islands. He married Bonita, his teenage sweetheart and with whom he had 10 children in a loving partnership that lasted 30 years. "I think that like many others, I was trying to deal with something that was new, that was undefined," Kennett told The Age newspaper. This is our land. However, whilst the right to development is about improvements in economic and material outcomes, it is also about our rights as Indigenous peoples to self-determination and our rights to control our natural wealth and resources. The conference, 'Land Rights and the Future of Australian Race Relations', was sponsored by the Townsville Treaty Committee and the James Cook University's Student Union. Born in 1936, he grew up in the village of Las on the north bend of Mer Island. Mabo/The Man/Land Rights Conference Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice, Copyright Australian Human Rights Commission, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlIndigP/2014/33.pdf, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/property-rights-will-help-economic-development-of-indigenous-australians/story-e6frg6z6-1227365821530, https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/social_justice_native_title_report_2013.pdf, http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/native-title-report-2008, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Development/Pages/RealizingaVisionforTransformativeDevelopment.aspx, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ALRCRefJl/2009/15.html#FootnoteB6, http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components#a, http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/264/hdr_2003_en_complete.pdf. Sign up for free to create engaging, inspiring, and converting videos with Powtoon. eddie mabo speech transcript eddie mabo speech transcript Unlike them, however, Mabo wasn't going to accept it. [9] UN Development Programme, Human Development Index, UN Human Development Report. On 3 June 1992, the High Court of Australia ruled in favour of limited native title. We need to work alongside government to equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills to turn the economic and commercial aspirations into reality. Eddie's daughter, Gail Mabo remembers that day well. Towards Reconciliation: The 1967 Referendum and Mabo Yindyamarra is respect: It is quiet, it is humble. A decade later, I was a young reporter still in my early 20s, finding my way into the foreign world of journalism when I saw a listing for a case at the High Court. The truth: This was his land. On November 16, 1990, after a year of considering the facts of the case, Justice Moynihan delivered his written findings to the High Court of Australia. For the love of his family and tradition, he fights for his land on Murray Island. Importantly, development is also a process through which other human rights can be realized and our wellbeing alongside all other populations is maximised. In 2008, a library at James Cook University was named after him. They then said to tell you they are aware of your continued fight for your culture and your country and salute you for your ongoing struggle. We cannot cross the same stream twice. My predecessor Dr Tom Calma explained the impact of never implementing a social justice package in 2008: this abyss is one of the underlying reasons why the native title system is under the strain it is under today[5]. [11]Native Title Act 1993 (Cth), preamble. I must say though, that beyond economic development, effective governance is critical to ensuring that our organisations are transparent and accountable to our communities and this is one challenge to which we must rise. It is sadness beyond the word sadness itself. Participants identified that we need to start considering the role of the financial services industry, as well as agencies such as Indigenous Business Australia and the Indigenous Land Corporation in the context of our economic development. Transcript 9037 | PM Transcripts Keating begins by discussing the moral and legal implications of the decision. I hope that youll share with me the need to move this conversation forward, in order to best realise our rights under native title and the benefits that should follow from that. But alongside . Mabo ended up on the mainland working a number of jobs, including labouring on the railways. (No. Eddie Mabo was a great hero to the Australian people. The High Court is the highest court in Australia's judicial system. As the Broome Roundtable highlighted, this remains one of the key unresolved issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their quest for ongoing economic development. As much as Australias law tried to tell him he was wrong, he knew his law and he knew that even the law of Britain that had stolen this land had to admit finally admit what we all knew, what Eddie Mabo knew. It was also a flagrant disregard of Britain's own existing laws, which stated that the Aboriginal people did have title rights over their own land. Bonita 'Netta' Mabo: Eddie's wife and is a resourceful, supportive and loving woman. PDF 3 June: a significant date - Reconciliation Australia Mabo made a speech to the audience where he explained the indigenous customary land inheritance system on Murray Island. The memory of wounds. A lawyer heard the speech and asked . (2010 lecture transcript). The Mabo verdict was arguably the most significant court ruling in the history of Indigenous Australia, overturning the concept of terra nullius and paving the way for native title. That's why the legal decision is universally known as "Mabo". I like how the words create a rhythm. But despite the success of the '67 campaign, in 1972 Eddie Mabo still had to get permission from the Queensland authorities to visit his dying father on Mer Island. This is an edited extract of the 2022 Mabo Lecture, delivered by Stan Grant on June 3, 2022, to commemorate 30 years since the Mabo decision. The court dismissed his challenge to Australian sovereignty, but in his opinion Justice Lionel Murphy rattled the bones of the Australian settlement. " Read about our approach to external linking. Eddie Mabo was heartbroken and never forgave government authorities. The great polish poetCzeslawMilosz said perhaps all memory is the memory of wounds. Mabo vs Queensland possible Commonwealth interventions, 1991 (A14039, 7909), The Mabo Decision principles for a response, 1993 (A14217, 1042), Mabo responses to the outline of legislation, 1993 (A14217, 1322), Mabo collection at the National Library of Australia, Building trust in the public record policy, Getting started with information management. He was a Meriam man and grew up on Mer, part of the Murray Island Group in the Torres Strait. The significance of Mabo Day - ABC Education Mabo and others: products or agents of progress? To Eddie Koiki Mabo and chief justice Sir Gerard Brennan. [1] Cast [ edit] Jimi Bani as Eddie Mabo Gedor Zaro as Young Eddie Deborah Mailman as Bonita Mabo (ne Neehow) This could also be translated as greater Indigenous control over our lands and resources more generally, and a decrease in the burden placed on Indigenous landholders as I have mentioned earlier today by government and other industries. This was apartheid in Australia, not South Africa. The remarkable life story of Eddie 'Koiki' Mabo; a Torres Strait Islander who left school at the age of 15, yet spearheaded the High Court challenge that overthrew the fiction of terra nullius. This was our land. Two generations talk about the impact of the 1967 Referendum and the 1992 Mabo Decision . The former president of Western Australia's Liberal Party, Bill Hassel, said the ruling was greeted with "outrage". To seek justice we had to speak the words of British law. Biography - Edward Koiki (Eddie) Mabo - Indigenous Australia - ANU These adjustments are key if we are to translate our inherent legal rights under native title into sustainable opportunities for our people. Edward Koiki (Eddie) Mabo - Australian Dictionary of Biography He is hardworking and determined, but at the cost of his family life. Whilst the case did little to clarify the legal principles around calculating compensation, it is one example of the positive realization after many years, of the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to land and waters within the native title system. the Aborigines did not give up their lands peacefully; they were killed or removed forcibly from the lands by United Kingdom forces or the European colonists in what amounted to attempted (and in Tasmania almost complete) genocide.". To build a world worth living in. In conversations with Commissioner Wilson and others, we are in the midst of developing what the next step in this process should look like and we will continue to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples such as yourselves in order to do this. However, in the lead-up to these hearings, the Parliament of Queensland passed the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985, which asserted that, upon being annexed by the Queensland Government in 1879, 'the islands were vested in the Crown freed from all other rights, interests and claims'. 2023 BBC. He was a Meriam man and grew up on Mer, part of the Murray Island Group in the Torres Strait. On 21 May 2008, James Cook University named its Townsville campus library the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library. Mabo | Film Analysis, Summary, Themes & Characters It is lament. During this time he enrolled as a student and studied teaching at the College of Advanced Education, which later amalgamated with JCU. Eddie Mabo was a staff member at JCU, working as a groundsman from 1967 to 1971. Words like the Uluru Statement from the Heart: We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart: Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. When democracy is teetering and autocracy is rising. The Court also recognised that all Indigenous people in Australia have rights to their land. The Declaration incorporates four fundamental human rights principles that can be categorised as: However, the UN Declaration on the Right to Development has been a lesser-known cousin to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. What is this Eddie Mabo Biography Worksheet? Volume 1 (227pp), Volume 2 (58pp). "The rights he won in the High Court have been eroded away by government, courts and socio-economic pressure.". Mabo : Working with Indigenous Australians Other forms of recognition have been added. So, in many ways, the victory has been more symbolic than practical. On Monday, he laid a wreath on Mr Mabo's grave on Mer Island. There was something of destiny in the air. And in some cases native title had become a millstone, almost drowning people in a sea of regulation, red tape and process without any semblance of necessary support. There were three key components to this: As you will know, the first two of these three components have been implemented, with varying degrees of success and impact on our communities over the years. 2009 Presentation by Professor Ross Garnaut, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow and Professorial Fellow in Economics, The University of Melbourne, and Distinguished Professor, The Australian University. Eddie Mabo (left) and . We did not end. It is short for Mabo and others v Queensland (No 2) (1992). In 1994 the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA) was established in response to Read More The Mabo decision What is the Mabo decision? It does not create any new rights, but rather reaffirms the rights that exist in many other international treaties and conventions. Mabo v Queensland (No 2) - Wikipedia This is yet another reason why a development approach is so urgently needed. (2014 lecture transcript), 2013 Presentation by Dr Bryan Keon-Cohen QC. . A number of key challenges that face Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were explored, particularly when it comes to the full realization of our rights under land rights and native title. (2012 lecture transcript), 2011 Presentation by Mr Mick Gooda, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner. Australian PM makes historic visit to Mabo's grave - BBC News Eddie Mabo of Mer island in the Torres Strait spent a decade seeking official recognition of his people's ownership of Mer and on 3 June 1992, the High Court of Australia agreed, rejecting the doctrine that Australia was terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) at the time of European settlement. Mabo/Mer As this brave mans voice even as he had passed was heard by another man who is now gone and together they changed us. I want to begin by honouring and quoting the words of the now late chief justice of the High Court of Australia, Sir Gerard Brennan,the words he wrote in his lead judgement in the Mabo case: The common law itself took from Indigenous inhabitants any right to occupy their traditional land, exposed them to deprivation of the religious, cultural and economic sustenance which the land provides, vested the land effectively in the control of the imperial authorities without any right to compensation and made the Indigenous inhabitants intruders in their own homes and mendicants for a place to live. For significant service to the community as a cultural leader and public sector executive in the field of Indigenous affairs.. We go on, he said, ever, ever, ever on. This independence could be realized through greater roles for Indigenous landholders through business, land management and other opportunities. A human rights based approach has been a key part of advocacy of all Social Justice Commissioners. The ongoing legacy of the Mabo decision - The Sydney Morning Herald It clearly did not, for instance, lead to vast numbers of white Australians being forced from their homes, businesses, mines or farms. This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or "mother nature", and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. The judge's four hundred page report presented Mabo and his barristers with a bombshell which threatened to sink their case. And he was right. There was scepticism, even cynicism, but I was able to report the story. Other cases persisted. That was Eddie Mabos gift. We are still trying to find the words to equal the full measure of Eddie Mabo's devotion. Our landsings gently a song of sadness. He knew about suffering. The truth: This was his land. The most important revelation arising from Eddie Mabo's claim and the High Court's decision was that an ancient title connected to the traditional occupation of the land by Aboriginal and Islander people had survived the . We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn, and work. To sign treaties. Others, mainly white opponents, regarded the judgement as a mistake. He's recorded as saying: "No way, it's not theirs, it's ours." But he was wrong. Eddie Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander activist. This Declaration on the Right to Development was adopted by the General Assembly in 1986.
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