eddie mabo speech transcript
2023 BBC. Promoting Indigenous peoples right to development. Mabo 20 years on: did it change the nation? We need to work alongside government to equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills to turn the economic and commercial aspirations into reality. He knew about suffering. It is short for Mabo and others v Queensland (No 2) (1992). On this great day, I, Prime Minister of Australia, speak to you on behalf of the Australian people all those who honour and love this land we live in. Two generations talk about the impact of the 1967 Referendum and the 1992 Mabo Decision . Mabo Day & Native Title: Who was Eddie Mabo & what is his legacy? 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.". Legacy of Eddie Mabo. 3. Business development support and succession planning. 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I have heard it at dawn as the earth crackles, the river waters run, and the animals stir as the Sun peers above the hills and the light strikes the trees on my beloved Wiradjuri country. I had read about the case as it moved through the lower courts. Mabo expressed. (No. This was apartheid in Australia, not South Africa. Mabo Day is an official holiday in the Torres Shire, celebrated on 3 June. Elders saythe wateris now a battleground. Words. British law was the law of the colony and usurped and superseded Aboriginal law. But the . Mabo and his fellow plaintiff's fought for land on Mer - their ancestral gardens and home. B12 of 1982 in the High Court of Australia). At: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/table-1-human-development-index-and-its-components#a (viewed 9 June 2015). 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. My people are the Gangulu from the Dawson Valley in Central Queensland. He petitioned, campaigned, cajoled and questioned Terra Nullius for 18 years. [3] N Pearson in The Australian, Property rights will help economical development of Indigenous Australians, 22 May 2015. This often presents internal issues for traditional owner groups about how decisions are made and how benefits will be shared and responsibilities exercised. In 1979 Wiradjuri man and law student Paul Coewalked the path that Eddie Mabo would follow all the way to the High Court of Australia. 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. However, it also raised equally relevant issues around the many state and local government land taxes and rates that apply once conversion has taken place. Until Mabo, we had been a forgotten people, even though we knew that we were in the right.". Friends we are the First Peoples of this country and we are the oldest living culture in the world because of our ability to adapt to ever changing environments and circumstances. In particular, Roundtable participants lamented the lack of governance skills amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander landholders to successfully engage in business development and to manage their estates. When the decision overturning Terra Nullius eventually came, the judges referred to the policy as "the darkest aspect of (our) national history" and one that left "a legacy of unutterable shame". The Mabo decision was a legal case held in 1992. [2] Australian Human Rights Commission, Paper on Indigenous Leaders Roundtable, Property Rights, p4. Uncle Edward 'Koiki' Mabo was born in 1936, in Las on the island of Mer (Murray Island) in the Torres Strait to 'Robert' Zesou Sambo and 'Annie' Poipe, ne Mabo. I have been honoured in the last six weeks by being asked to deliver both the Eddie Koiki Mabo Lecture here today and the Rob Riley Memorial Lecture on Friday the 8th of May in Perth. He was another victim of Terra Nullius, like so many of his fellow indigenous people had been before him. He married Bonita, his teenage sweetheart and with whom he had 10 children in a loving partnership that lasted 30 years. Nor did the judges intend that it should. Eddie Mabo was a staff member at JCU, working as a groundsman from 1967 to 1971. Those cases resulted in the acknowledgment that Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had the right to claim the land they and their ancestors had lived on for thousands of years. In 1959, he moved to mainland Queensland, working on pearling vessels and as a labourer. This effectively overturned the doctrine of terra nullius, which held that Australia didn't belong to anybody before European colonisation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that the National Archives' website and collection contain the names, images and voices of people who have died. We cannot cross the same stream twice. The truth: This was his land. 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. (2010 lecture transcript). Mabo v Queensland (No 1) was heard in 1986and 1988. When I looked over the lives of these two great Australians I was struck by the similarities of their struggles and the qualities they each share. Eddie Koiki Mabo was an advocate of the 1967 Referendum, fighting for equal rights including education. Some records include terms and views that are not appropriate today. Fungibility and native title. These adjustments are key if we are to translate our inherent legal rights under native title into sustainable opportunities for our people. We are still trying to find the words to equal the full measure of Eddie Mabo's devotion. To seek justice we had to speak the words of British law. From 1973-1983 he established and became director of the Black Community School in Townsville. 1h 43m. The legal decision was made by the High Court on 3 June 1992. Mabo died five months earlier from cancer in January 1992, at the age of 55. In 1982, along with four other Meriam people from Murray Island, he initiated legal proceedings in the Queensland Supreme Court claiming customary ownership of their lands on Murray Island. Eddie Koiki Mabo at Las, Murray Island, 1989 On 3 June 1992 the High Court of Australia recognised that a group of Torres Strait Islanders, led by Eddie Mabo, held ownership of Mer (Murray Island). 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. Their hard fought battle against the Queensland government finally consigned the lie of terra nullius to the historical dustbin and recognised the unique rights that we hold as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to our traditional land and waters. You may have heard that Tim Wilson, Human Rights Commissioner and I recently co-convened a roundtable on Yawuru country on the issue of Indigenous property rights. Aunty Clara Ogleby, I begin by acknowledging and paying my respects to the Kuku Yalanji people, Traditional Owners of the place upon which we sit and talk today. It is this issue of development that I will explore later in greater detail. It is sadness beyond the word sadness itself. In particular, this was raised as a way that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities might be able to leverage finances in order to support economic development opportunities and to improve the capacity of our mobs to best manage these prospects in the future. Topics are usually less than 2 minutes long. Born in 1936, he grew up in the village of Las on the north bend of Mer Island. Following his speech, he was approached by a lawyer, who asked if he'd be interested in taking the Australian Government to court to finally decide who owned the 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. In August 1981 Mabo attended a conference on land rights at James Cook University. 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. "Koiki was ambitious for himself and for his people." As Kevin Mason divedin the ocean, a compliance officer waswatching on the cliffs above. Across language itself. He's recorded as saying: "No way, it's not theirs, it's ours." You Murray Islanders have won that court case. The preamble to the Native Title Act makes it clear that the objectives of the legislation are to: rectify the consequences of past injustices by the special measures contained in the Act to ensure that Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders receive the full recognition and status within the Australian nation to which history, their prior rights and interests, and their rich and diverse culture, fully entitle them to aspire.[11]. He also co-operated with members of the Communist Party, the only white political party to support Aboriginal campaigns at the time. He knew about hope and he knew about justice. The debate about Mabo's legacy still goes on today, Many indigenous Australians still live in poverty, Bakhmut attacks still being repelled, says Ukraine, AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Mother who killed her five children euthanised, Canadian grandma helps police snag phone scammer, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus, Zoom boss Greg Tomb fired without cause. But that hasn't stopped indigenous people, like Queensland elder Douglas Bon, taking great satisfaction in the ruling. The theme of this years conference is Leadership, Legacy and Opportunity. The former president of Western Australia's Liberal Party, Bill Hassel, said the ruling was greeted with "outrage". 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. However, contemporary Indigenous governance needs recognises that we must now adjust our customary ways of governing to meet the expectations and regulations of non-indigenous laws and institutions. Without this foundation, there would be no opportunity for us to access these rights through this unique form of land tenure. These legal challenges continued into the 20th century rulings maintained the legitimacy of the Crown but could not extinguish completely the Aboriginal claims. Australian law for two centuries hid the truth behind words. Mabo was a Torres Strait islander from Mer (Murray Island), off Australia's north-east coast. Concocted by the early settlers, it was used, systematically, cynically and effectively to deprive the indigenous people of their own land. 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. Australia owes you a great debt. The National Archives holds a diverse array of records relating to the Mabo case. In 2008, a library at James Cook University was named after him. At 31, this affrontery became his epiphany. The man who had engineered the historic change of law, never lived to witness it himself. The courts had previously found that the Nguraritja had non-exclusive native title over certain parcels of land, but not over those where native title had already been extinguished. The world of becoming ascends. I also acknowledge Meriam PBC Chair Mr Doug Passi. 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Milosz wrote into the horror of the 20th century as he saw war all around him. So, in many ways, the victory has been more symbolic than practical. This activity encourages children to write down their knowledge in a structured report . That permission was denied. And he knew truth. A world turning. I have previously spoken at length about the importance of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which contains 46 articles on the rights that Indigenous peoples all around the world hold. Eternal. We cross rivers and we are changed like the water itself. 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. "The rights he won in the High Court have been eroded away by government, courts and socio-economic pressure.". Love, suffering, hope, justice and truth Eddie Mabo knew about love too. I have heard many stories from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and Traditional Owners about the many barriers they face in reaching their potential benefits under land rights and native title. Han is Korean and it is more than a word. In 1959, he moved to mainland Queensland, working on pearling vessels and as a labourer. In 1981, Eddie Mabo made a speech at James Cook University in Queensland, where he explained his people's beliefs about the ownership and inheritance of land on Mer. One of the people who attended the conference, a lawyer, suggested they should make a case to claim land rights through the court system. Can Nigeria's election result be overturned? 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. The victory was largely down to one indigenous man called Eddie Mabo. 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. Mabo: Life of an Island Man is a 1997 Australian documentary film on the life of Indigenous Australian land rights campaigner Eddie Koiki Mabo.. Eddie Mabo was a great hero to the Australian people. 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. Eddie Mabo would not live to see his final victory, but in that judgement he became immortal. 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. While working as a gardener at James Cook University, he found out through two historians that, by law, he and his family did not own their land on Mer. 2004 Presentation by Fr Frank Brennan SJ AO. Unlike them, however, Mabo wasn't going to accept it. Suggested answer: While working as a grounds keeper at James Cook University in Townsville, Eddie learnt about Australian land ownership laws. It is lament. On 3 June 1992, six of the seven High Court judges upheld the claim and ruled that the lands of . They ruled that the Mabo decision in no way challenges the legality of non-Aboriginal land tenure. The Roundtable included a diverse range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, with nearly 50 people in total from as far and wide as the Torres Straits, the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York, Sydney, the Kimberley and Darwin.