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Mabo Day marks the anniversary of the June 3, 1992 court ruling in Australia that affirmed native peoples held title to their land, regardless of how they chose to use it. This legal battle dates back to the 1780s and was finally spearheaded by Eddie Koiki Mabo, who sadly died five months before the ruling was announced.
The Aboriginal Heritage Society explains it thus:
Terra nullius (land belonging to no one) is the legal concept that Indigenous peoples did not own Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because they did not 'use' the land in ways Europeans believed constituted some legal possession, thus giving 'legitimacy' to the British colonial and Australian governments to allow the dispossession of all Indigenous peoples of their land. Whether an Aboriginal group lost its land to colonial settlement and invasion in 1788, 1880, or 1970, the argument was that they never owned it, never had an internationally recognizable legal entitlement to it, and therefore could be considered trespassers on Crown land and would not be able to claim any compensation for its loss.
Koiki Mabo and his legal team fought hard to demonstrate that he and his people had traditional land ownership systems on Mer. The case went to the High Court. Unfortunately, Eddie Mabo died five months before the historic decision came on June 3, 1992, that 'native title' did exist, and it was up to the people of Mer to determine who owned the land.
In 2002, Eddie's wife, Bonita Mabo, called for a national public holiday. Eddie and Bonita’s son, Eddie Mabo Jr. She said:
"We believe that a public holiday would be fitting to honor and recognize the contribution to the High Court decision of not only my father and his co-plaintiffs, James Rice, Father Dave Passi, Sam Passi, and Celuia Salee, but also to acknowledge all Indigenous Australians who have empowered and inspired each other."
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