Meriam People Case

In the 1971 Gove land rights case, Justice Blackburn ruled that Australia was terra nullius prior European settlement. This judgement was challenged for a total of 3 years but all attempts failed. However, on the 20th May 1982, Eddie Koiki Mabo and 4 other Indigenous people began their legal claim for ownership of their traditional lands on the island of Mer in the Torres Strait. The case was later taken to supreme court and after ten years, the case was closed and the government granted the indigenous people of australia their rightful land. Before this, Eddie had been helping his community from a young age.

Eddie Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander who believed Australian laws and land ownership were wrong and fought to change them. On 20 May 1982, Eddie Mabo, Sam Passi, David Passi, Celuia Mapo Salee and James Rice began their legal claim for ownership of their lands against the Queensland Government. In 1985, while the Mabo case was proceeding, the Queensland Government tried to avoid the issue of whether rights of Indigenous peoples survived colonisation. Due to this the leader of the Queensland Government Joh Bjelke-Petersen decided to introduce the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985. This Act had claimed to extinguish any rights and interests that the Meriam people may have had before its enactment.

In the 1980’s, national campaigns for land rights laws began and Eddie spoke at a 1981 land rights conference on land rights in the Torres Straits. On hearing his speech, Lawyer, H. C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, encouraged Eddie and other Meriam people to establish ownership of their lands through the High Court of Australia, and on 20 May 1982, Koiki and four other Meriam Men began their fight for ownership of their lands on Murray and Dauar Islands through the Australian High Court. Koiki was named the first plaintiff, so the case became known as the Mabo Case. Research grants from AIATSIS helped out with the case, but the Queensland Government introduced a sneaky new law in 1985 to crush their chances for native title. Koiki and his colleagues challenged this new law and won, as the High Court found in 1988, this new Queensland law breached Australian racial discrimination laws—Mabo v. Queensland [No. 1].

The Mabo decision of the high court in 1992 is vastly significant as it marks history as the victory of indigenous Australian land rights against the federal government, who had colonised their land and refused to acknowledge that Australia was originally owned by the ATSI people but became a terra nullius land due to the European colonists. The events that have occurred before 1992 such as the The Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) of 1976 and the bark petition is deemed less significant than the Mabo decision. I firmly believe that the Mabo case is an extraordinary achievement. it started in 1982 when Eddie Mabo brought up a case against the supreme court of Queensland that Indigenous Australians should have land rights. After almost a whole

The Mabo Decision was the turning point for the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. Firstly, the Mabo Decision was significant because the decision was the lead up to the recognition of Aboriginal Rights. The Mabo Decision was the movement that made everyone fully recognise the Aboriginal people as humans, and official citizens of the country. The Decision also raised awareness to the discrimination the Aboriginal people were facing before the referendum.

“Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death” (What are human rights, 2017). Joyce Clague, born in 1938, is an inspirational and significant political activist for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples. During the 1967 constitutional referendum and native title reclamation of Yaegl she contributed to helping ATSI people regain their native land and be calculated in the census. Before the 1967 referendum, ATSI peoples were not ‘counted’ in the census and therefore were not given any government subsidy such as social security funding, pensions or child endowment funds that the white population received if they were unemployed or not making enough to afford to raise their family (Taffe, Miller, 1996). The people of Yaegl, a strip of land on the Clarence River, NSW did not have their native land and it took 20 years of political work to regain their native land

After the Holt government announced on February 23 1967, a referendum to amend sections 51 and 127 of the constitution, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders used pamphlets and posters to campaign for a Yes vote. The ‘Right Wrongs, Write Yes’ poster in particular was a key factor in its appeal to a sense of justice in white Australians to vote yes, specifically in its use of appealing indigenous children (NMA,

His activism and leadership in the land rights movement helped to bring about important changes in Australian law and society, and his legacy continues to inspire Indigenous people around the world. One of Mabo's most significant contributions was his role in the landmark Mabo v Queensland case, which was decided by the High Court of Australia in 1992. This case overturned the legalism of terra nullius, which had been used to justify the dispossession of Indigenous peoples' lands by European colonizers. The court recognized that Indigenous peoples had a pre-existing system of land ownership and that this system had not been extinguished by British colonization. This decision paved the way for the recognition of Indigenous land rights in Australia and helped to establish a legal framework for the negotiation of land rights agreements between Indigenous peoples and the Australian government.

[3] The case involved the recognition of native title, which is an important legal principle that recognizes Indigenous Australians' connection to the land. The case overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius, which had been used to justify the colonization of Australia by denying the existence of Indigenous Australians' prior occupation of the land. Recognizing native title in the Mabo case was a significant step towards acknowledging Indigenous Australians' connection to the land and recognizing their rights as traditional landowners. In addition, the case established the principle that Indigenous Australians have a continuing connection to the land and the right to access and use the land by their traditions and customs, which are significant aspects of Indigenous culture and

The Commonwealth was completely unprepared, and as the Mabo story gained traction, apathy started to fade away, knocking down any political policy the government had set out to conquer at the beginning of its term. On 3 June, 1992, the High Court of Australia rejected the doctrine of terra nullius and recognised Indigenous land rights for the first time. In doing so, the Commonwealth had admitted that the Indigenous peoples had lived in Australia for thousands of years, that their land had slowly dissolved into the colonies as they grew, underwriting the Australian identity. This lack

The high court was allowed to do this as it within their rights and power. The Mabo case had many effects on the legal system in Australia. Some of these affects are; frantic legislative activity, intense political debate and a vast amount of media and academic attention. The case completely changed the legal, political and social relations between indigenous and non-indigenous people. It also recognised the land rights of the Murray islanders and changed Australia

Eddie had a strong passion for his hometown that drove the proud Torres Strait Islander to then undertake a 10-year legal battle, which rewrote Australians history for the better. During 1982 Eddie Mabo led the Indigenous people of Mer Island. As a troop, their main argument was to clarify that many generation of the Meriam people had lived on the island, when then was even prior to the arrival of all Europeans. They all believed that they were the first and traditional owners of the land. Terra Nullius was another one of there arguments even though the Europeans had taken charge and claimed it in 1770.

In 1957, I and fellow activist Jessie Street launched a petition in support of the referendum culminating in the 1967 victory. In 1974, I decided to direct my energies to the plight of my own people, the 16,000 descendants of South Sea Islanders. I founded the National Commission for Australian South Sea Islanders and, in 1975, made my first emotional journey to my father’s birthplace on

The Mabo decision changed the legal, political and social relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. In recognising the traditional rights of Murray Islanders it changed Australia forever. The Mabo decision opened the doors for other indigenous people and groups to be able to claim ownership of land. They were required to prove that they had continuous connection to the land and maintained their traditional associating with it. The 'native title ' is the recognition by law that some aboriginal and torres strait islander people have rights to certain land due to their traditional laws and customs.

In this article by Smith, there is an image that represents Australia things like generation y, tracks, flag icon of Australia, union jack, outback Australia, white young Australians, holding the Australian flag (settling) and smiling. Smith further argues that indigenous people survived and managed the land well; consequently modern Australia should try and get indigenous people to get them to feel like they belong in our country Australia. The sense of nurture is included in this article by smith when he uses the words fragile, nurtured and carefully managing. The effect of the article by Smith when the reader reads the article it makes them feel that the land belongs to no one when smith argued the words “terra Nullius.”