1992 High Court Mabo Decision

1992 High Court Mabo Decision - Research Essay

Bonny Treloar

The 1992 High Court Mabo decision was a significant turning point for reconciliation between indigenous Australians and Australians from a non-indigenous cultural background. The Mabo decision was a legal case held in 1992 and the legal decision was made by the High Court on 3 June 1992. Indigenous Australians inhabited Australia for approximately 40,000 years prior to European settlement, that resulted in significant, permanent changes to their tradition and way of life. Indigenous rights were revoked, as they were regarded as flora and fauna rather than actual beings in the eyes of the Europeans settlers. The federal laws outlining Aboriginal rights were exceedingly strict prior

They did not receive the basic wage and were not eligible for aged and invalid pensions, which increased hardship. Aboriginals were excluded from military training, travel restrictions were enforced upon them, the Aboriginal mothers did not receive the baby-bonus and the Indigenous Australian community were not counted in the census as Australian citizens. And until 1992, land laws claimed that Australia was terra nullius or land belonging to no one - effectively, these laws refused to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples had prior occupation and connection to the land. The legal and moral recognition of ownership of the lands and waters was an ongoing struggle, as the connections to the land is essential to the continued cultural survival of Indigenous Australians as well as their social and economic development. Several politicians opposed this perspective with extreme

Surely it is absolutely repugnant to the greater number of the people of the Commonwealth that an Aboriginal man or Aboriginal lubra or gin [woman] - a horrible, degraded, dirty creature - should have the same rights that we have given to our wives and daughters… The honourable gentleman fails to recognise that we have taken this country from the blacks, and made it a white man’s country, so that there is no earthly use in the honourable gentleman saying that 100 years ago this was a black man’s country… we are aware of the fact that it is very regrettable, and the only consolation we have is that they are gradually dying out.”

Western Australian Senator Alexander Matheson, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, Senate, 22 May, 1901 This extract from Western Australian Senator Alexander Matheson enforces the obvious contempt shown by the Australian general public perspective and the intent to suffocate the Indigenous population. The Aboriginal Rights Movement emerged in the 1930’s and celebrated a victory in 1967, as Aboriginals were entitled to vote in federal elections and gained equal citizenship. The Mabo case confronted the current Australian Legal system from two