The Mabo decision refers to the decision made as a result of a legal case, Mabo and others v Queensland (No 2) (1992). The High Court – the highest court in Australia’s judicial system – made the decision on 3 June 1992. It recognised that First Nations people have a claim of ownership over the land, and it paved the way for the Native Title Act which gives First Nations people proprietary rights to land.
The Mabo decision was named after Eddie Koiki Mabo. He led the challenge and fought for recognition of the rights of First Nations peoples as the traditional owners of their land.
Eddie Mabo was a Torres Strait Islander man who grew up on the island of Mer (Murray Island). When he was growing up, life in the Torres Strait Islands was regulated with laws made by the Queensland Government, which took possession of the land through the Queensland Coast Islands Act of 1879.
Mabo believed Mer belonged to the Torres Strait Islander people who had lived there for tens of thousands of years, while the Australian government believed they held ownership.
The government claimed that in becoming sovereign over the land, it claimed ownership. This was based on the declaration that Australia was terra nullius (land belonging to no one), made when the British arrived in 1788.
This declaration was made even though First Nations people had occupied Australia for tens of thousands of years before the British arrived. First Nations people had laws, customs, homes, trade routes, songlines, and deep knowledge of the land and how to preserve and cultivate it.
By declaring Australia and the Torres Strait Islands as terra nullius, the British took the land from First Nations people without agreement or payment. It’s this long-lasting legal principle which Eddie Mabo and the Mer Islanders challenged and ultimately overturned.
The Mabo case lasted 10 years. On 3 June 1992, the High Court ruled that terra nullius should never have been applied to Australia. This decision legally recognised that First Nations peoples had rights to the land which existed before the British arrived, and that these rights should still exist today.
The court established that sovereignty could no longer support the state’s claim for absolute ownership of land, and that the territory’s original inhabitants – including Mabo and his community – could retain ownership if native title was granted.
The Mabo decision was a turning point for First Nations rights and led to the Australian Parliament passing the Native Title Act in 1993.
Native title is the legal recognition that some First Nations people have rights to certain land through their traditional laws and customs which predated the British. This act sets the rules for dealing with land where native title still exists or may exist, setting out arrangements for who can access and use the land in question.
To have native title recognised, First Nations people must prove they have a continuous connection to the land and have not done anything to break that connection (such as selling or leasing the land).
According to the latest numbers from the National Native Title Tribunal, there have been 498 native title determinations since the historic decision. However, the process can be lengthy, emotionally exhausting and also require lots of time and other resources from First Nations people and communities groups. Many say there is unfinished business that requires a whole other series of reforms.
1924: Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association formed
Fred Maynard
Founded in 1924, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association (AAPA) is recognised as the country’s first politically organised, united Aboriginal activist group.
At its height, the AAPA had 13 branches, four sub branches and more than 600 members in New South Wales (NSW).
The AAPA campaigned for Indigenous rights to land ownership, citizenship, control over their own affairs, and an end to the practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families. It clashed extensively with the NSW Aborigines Protection Board.
Fred Maynard, Sydney, 1925:
Brothers and sisters we have much business to transact so let’s get right down to it … we aim at the spiritual, political, industrial and social. We want to work out our own destiny. Our people have not had the courage to stand together in the past, but now we are united, and are determined to work for the preservation for all of those interests, which are near and dear to us.
From 1788 Europeans subjected Indigenous Australians to introduced diseases, displacement, dispossession and widespread violence that significantly reduced their numbers and undermined their culture across the continent.
In the early 20th century, government policy focussed on ‘protecting’ and assimilating Indigenous Australians. The NSW Government introduced the Aborigines Protection Act 1909 to give power to bodies like the NSW Aborigines Protection Board.
An amendment to this Act in 1915 allowed the Board to remove anyone under the age of 21 at any time and for any reason.
This was usually applied to Aboriginal children of mixed parentage, and increased the number of children taken from their families, creating what are now known as the Stolen Generations.
Children in state or religious care were often mistreated and abused, and those forced into indentured servitude were generally treated badly. They were usually unpaid and had little meaningful independence.
Stolen Generations children usually lost their language and cultural identity, and many never saw their siblings or parents again.
Between 1913 and 1927 the land in NSW allocated for Aboriginal reserves had also been halved from 26,000 acres to 13,000 acres. This meant that Indigenous families were forced to relocate from traditional homelands that they had often lived on for generations.
By the early 20th century, a number of Aboriginal people and groups were looking for ways to speak out about the injustices their families and communities were experiencing. There were a number of influences on the development of early Aboriginal activism.
A particularly strong inspiration was the controversial Jamaican, Marcus Garvey, who in 1912 founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
UNIA aimed to raise the profile of African people around the world, make African communities financially and socially independent and remove them from the control of mostly white governments that restricted their human rights. Garvey even went so far as to campaign for all African people in other countries to be repatriated to Africa where they could live free from prejudice.
In 1916 Garvey moved to the United States to raise funds for a school for African children in Jamaica. While in America, he established a chapter of the UNIA in Harlem, as well as a newspaper called Negro World, and a number of exclusively African-owned, -managed and -operated businesses and associations.
UNIA, with millions of members worldwide, held conventions and street marches, produced widely publicised articles about African rights and worked to bind the African community together in solidarity.
A chapter of the organisation operated in Sydney and during the early 1920s members of the group often wrote to the Garvey family. The circumstances of Aboriginal Australians were repeatedly reported on in Negro World, with article headlines including ‘Race Horrors in Australia Unspeakably Vile’ and ‘Killing off the Black Australians’.
The Coloured Progressive Association (CPA), a group formed in 1903 by African, Caribbean and Indian seamen, also influenced Indigenous activists in Australia. Protesting Australia’s racist immigration policies, the CPA seamen were in contact with large numbers of Indigenous men who worked on the waterfront, often involving them in their activities.
The seamen were able to bring news of rights struggles from abroad, creating networks, spreading information and directing messages of support across the world. Fred Maynard, one of the founding members and president of the AAPA, was associated with this group.
The Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association, founded by Fred Maynard in Sydney in 1924, is recognised as Australia’s first united and politically organised Aboriginal activist group.
Other members of the group included J Johnstone (Vice President), Tom Lacey (Secretary), William and John Ridgeway, James Linwood, Joe Anderson and Jane Duren.
Another supporter of the organisation was Elizabeth McKenzie-Hatton, a European woman who assisted the AAPA by travelling around NSW, spreading information about the Association among Indigenous communities.
She also funded an AAPA-managed home for young Aboriginal girls who had run away from their abusive employers.
The group was vehemently opposed to the involvement of the NSW Aborigines Protection Board in the lives of Aboriginal people, and called for its abolition. They demanded that Indigenous affairs be managed by Indigenous people.
The AAPA also focussed on:
In the first six months of its existence, the AAPA attracted about 500 members. Eventually there would be 13 branches and four sub branches across the state with more than 600 members, representing a high proportion of the Aboriginal population of NSW who were actually at liberty to join.
The AAPA used methods inspired by activist groups like the UNIA. They held street rallies and protests, petitioned political leaders such as NSW Premier Jack Lang, held conferences, and wrote letters to newspapers across the state.
Fred Maynard found a particular ally in JJ Maloney, editor of The Voice of the North newspaper in Newcastle. Maloney often published Fred’s letters and opinion pieces about Aboriginal self-governance and self-sufficiency, the mistreatment of Aboriginal children and families, and the general failings of the Protection Board.
Because of Fred’s very public opposition, the Board banned him from entering NSW missions and reserves to speak with the Aboriginal people living there.
In April 1925 the AAPA held its first conference at St David’s Church and Hall in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills. More than 200 people attended, and Fred Maynard and other members of the Association and the community made impassioned speeches calling for Aboriginal self-determination and equality.
The conference made front-page news in many NSW newspapers and brought the Association to the attention of the public and the authorities.
The AAPA organised three more conferences in the ensuing years: at Kempsey in late 1925, Grafton in 1926 and Lismore in 1927. About 700 people attended the three-day Kempsey conference, which featured exclusively Aboriginal presenters and organisations.
The very public nature of the AAPA’s opposition to the Protection Board resulted in increased political and police scrutiny of the Association and its members.
The Inspector General of the NSW police, who was the Chair of the Protection Board, increased police intimidation of AAPA members. This included threats to jail AAPA members or remove their children.
The Protection Board also sought to discredit members of the AAPA, especially Fred Maynard, by running smear campaigns in newspapers and providing biased information about them to people in positions of power like NSW Premier Jack Lang.
Under strong pressure from government and law enforcement agencies, the organisation ceased widespread public activity at the end of 1927.
While some members continued to work with the AAPA at a more private level until the 1930s, the organisation quickly faded from public memory.
Only relatively recently, through the work of Fred Maynard’s grandson John Maynard, has the AAPA been properly acknowledged for its role in Australia’s Indigenous rights struggle.
In 1965, a group of students from the University of Sydney drew national and international attention to the appalling living conditions of Aboriginal people and the racism that was rife in New South Wales country towns. Known as the Freedom Ride, this 15-day bus journey through regional New South Wales would become a defining moment in Australian activism.
Billy Craigie and Michael Anderson setting up the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in front of Old Parliament House, on Ngunnawal Country (Canberra), on 27 January, 1972. Their sign reads, ‘Why pay to use our own land?’ Photo: State Library of New South Wales collection, sourced from Alamy
By Bronwyn Carlson and Lynda-June Coe
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.
Often people think about the Aboriginal Tent Embassy as something historic, dating back to the 1970s. But it should also be thought of as a site of the longest protest for Indigenous land rights, sovereignty and self-determination in the world.
In fact, this year, the Tent Embassy is set to celebrate its 50th continuous year of occupation. Demonstrating its significance to Australian history, it was included on the Commonwealth Heritage List in 2015 as part of the Old Parliament House precinct.
In this momentous year, it’s worth remembering how the Tent Embassy came to be and what it has continued to stand for since its erection in 1972 – and the significance it still has today.
The Tent Embassy began its public life on 26 January, 1972. On that day, Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey left Redfern and drove to Ngunnawal Country (Canberra), where they planted a beach umbrella opposite Parliament House (now known as Old Parliament House). They erected a sign that said “Aboriginal Embassy”. With them on that day was their driver, Tribune photographer Noel Hazard, who captured the event in a series of photos.
The term “embassy” was used to bring attention to the fact Aboriginal people had never ceded sovereignty nor engaged in any treaty process with the Crown. As a collective, Aboriginal people were the only cultural group not represented with an embassy.
According to Aboriginal activist and scholar Gary Foley, the absence of an Aboriginal embassy in Canberra was a blatant indication Aboriginal people were treated like aliens in their own land.
Initially, the protesters were making a stand about land rights following the then prime minister William McMahon’s speech that dismissed any hope for Aboriginal land rights and reasserted the government’s position on the policy of assimilation. The Tent Embassy was therefore a public display of our disapproval of and objection to the policies and practices of the government.
In later years, it has become an acclaimed site of our continued resistance to the continuity of colonial rule.
The above is an excerpt from Reconciliation News – May 2022.
Read the full article online in the latest edition of Reconciliation News.
This edition of Reconciliation News is all about the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultural empowerment, protection and rights. Download the full PDF or read the full edition online.
1972: Aboriginal Tent Embassy established in front of Parliament House, Canberra
Establishment of Aboriginal Tent Embassy on Australia Day, 26 January 1972
On 26 January 1972 four Indigenous men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House in Canberra. Describing the umbrella as the Aboriginal Embassy, the men were protesting the McMahon government’s approach to Indigenous land rights.
The embassy operated in a number of locations and took many forms before its permanent establishment on those same lawns in 1992.
The goals of protesters have also changed over time, and now include not only land rights but also Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
John Newfong, Identity, 1972:
With its flags fluttering proudly in the breeze, the Aboriginal Embassy on the lawns opposite federal parliament has been one of the most successful press and parliamentary lobbies in Australian political history.
Since European settlement, Indigenous Australians have been fighting to retain the rights to their traditional lands. The 1960s and 70s was a period of greater national awareness of Indigenous activism and saw significant actions taken by groups in the land rights struggle.
In 1966, 200 Gurindji stockmen, domestic workers and their families walked off Wave Hill Station, beginning a strike that would last seven years. Lobbying the Northern Territory and Australian governments for equal pay and conditions, as well as land ownership, the Gurindji people bought these issues firmly into the public eye.
The 1967 referendum, in which Aboriginal Australians were finally recognised as citizens, also provided more momentum to the land rights struggle by raising the profile of Indigenous issues with the wider Australian public.
The 1971 Milirrpum v Nabalco Northern Territory Supreme Court case also highlighted the issue of land rights. In 1963, after traditional lands of the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land were sold without consultation to Nabalco, a bauxite mining company, traditional owners made several attempts to have the land returned, including the now famous Bark Petition.
When Justice Blackburn ruled against the Yolngu on the grounds that Native Title was not part of Australian law, Indigenous communities Australia-wide were outraged.
On the eve of Australia Day 1972, the McMahon government announced the implementation of a new system that rejected granting independent ownership of traditional land to Indigenous people in favour of 50-year general purpose leases for Indigenous communities, provided they could demonstrate a social and economic use for the land and excluding any mineral and forest rights.
After the ongoing disappointments of the land rights struggle, this announcement sparked action among many Indigenous groups and directly contributed to the founding of the Tent Embassy.
Alan Sharpley (holding the sign) and John Newfong (far right) at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra
After the McMahon government’s announcement, many protest groups sprang into action, including a group from Redfern in Sydney. Four members of this group – Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Bertie Williams and Tony Coorey – drove to Canberra and set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite (what is now Old) Parliament House.
Labelled the ‘Aboriginal Embassy’, the sit-in protest was symbolic of the fact that the government’s statement had made Indigenous Australians, in the words of activist Gary Foley, ‘aliens in our own land, so like other aliens, we needed an embassy’.[1]
On 6 February the embassy issued a list of demands to the Australian Government. The list focused on land rights issues and demanded:
A visit from Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam to discuss the five-point plan was seen by activists as a great success in gaining recognition for their cause and having their ideas heard by those in positions of power.
Sign used at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, 1972
Rapidly gathering support, the embassy grew by April to include at least eight tents. It attracted both Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people from across the country who joined in solidarity over the land rights movement.
Support shown by official representatives from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups, as well as diplomats from a number of countries including Canada and Russia, helped bolster the profile of the embassy.
Support for the Embassy was also strong among the Canberra student population, with a number of Australian National University students assisting with billeting, joining the protest crowd and opening an embassy bank account.
Gaining media attention across Australia and internationally, the embassy site became a centre for protest, with a number of well-known Aboriginal activists spending time there. These included Gary Foley, Roberta Sykes, John Newfong, Chicka Dixon and Gordon Briscoe to name a few.
Groups from the embassy went on protest marches, lobbied government representatives and spoke at community forums to continue to raise the issue of land rights in broader public settings.
While the embassy enjoyed wide support, it also faced a large contingent of politicians and members of the general public who believed that the protest was nothing more than trespassing, and a blot on the Canberra landscape.
View from Parliament House of police and protesters at a land rights demonstration, Canberra, 30 July 1972
Offers were made to the embassy for buildings and a ‘club’ both on the original site and in other Canberra locations. However, these were refused as they were seen as a way of placating and removing protesters while making no real changes to the land rights situation.
In May 1972 Ralph Hunt, the Minister for the Interior, announced that new laws would come into effect making it illegal to camp on unleased land in the ACT and giving the government powers to forcibly remove anyone found to be in breach of the ordinance.
On 20 July hundreds of protesters clashed with police in a violent brawl after officers tried to move people along and remove the embassy tents. Many protesters were arrested and the tents were torn down.
The next Sunday, after the embassy tents had been re-erected, more than 200 protesters again clashed with police and the tents were removed for a second time. Images of police violence against protesters spread across the country, leading to even greater support for the embassy and its aims.
On 31 July 1972 more than 2,000 people were present when the tents were re-erected and then removed by protesters in a peaceful demonstration. After Justice Blackburn found the legality of the ordinance giving police power to remove protesters was invalid, protesters again peacefully erected and removed the tents in a symbolic gesture.
The removal ordinance was then legally introduced in September, preventing any further establishment of embassy tents at Parliament House.
Demonstration march from the Tent Embassy
Between 1972 and 1992 the embassy was established at a succession of places across Canberra, including the site of the current Australian Parliament House.
Focusing not only on land rights, protesters now encouraged action on a number of issues including funding for Aboriginal communities, the political representation of Indigenous Australians, self-determination and Aboriginal sovereignty of Australia.
In 1992 on the 20th anniversary of the original protests, the embassy was permanently re-established on its original site on the lawns outside Old Parliament House. Protesters once more sought to raise the profile of Indigenous issues, fearing that those in power were again forgetting Indigenous Australians.
In 1995 the embassy itself was listed on the Register of the National Estate; the only site on therRegister noted as important due to its political significance to Indigenous Australians.
Since this permanent re-establishment, protests have been held at the embassy for a range of reasons, including against Aboriginal deaths in custody, the Howard government’s Northern Territory Intervention in 2007, and cuts to essential Indigenous services .
The embassy is still controversial. Many people have challenged its validity and a number of arson attacks have damaged buildings within the camp.
The Tent Embassy is a symbol of Aboriginal protest against successive governments and their approach to Indigenous issues. Today, the most prominent issue being publicised by the embassy is Aboriginal sovereignty over the Australian continent and an acknowledgement of an Indigenous right to self-determination.
1966: Gurindji strike (or Wave Hill Walk-Off) led by Vincent Lingiari
Vincent Lingiari, addressing the media after Prime Minister Gough Whitlam officially returns Aboriginal land at Wattie Creek
On 23 August 1966, 200 Gurindji stockmen, domestic workers and their families initiated strike action at Wave Hill station in the Northern Territory.
Negotiations with the station owners, the international food company Vestey Brothers, broke down, leading to a seven-year dispute.
This eventually led to the return of a portion of their homelands to the Gurindji people in 1974, and the passing of the first legislation that allowed for First Nations peoples to claim land title if they could prove a traditional relationship to the country.
Vincent Lingiari, 1966:
I bin thinkin’ this bin Gurindji country. We bin here longa time before them Vestey mob.
Vincent Lingiari beside a plaque marking the handing over of the lease in Wattie Creek
The Gurindji people had lived on their homelands in what is now the Victoria River area of the Northern Territory for tens of thousands of years when in 1883 the colonial government granted almost 3,000 square kilometres of their country to the explorer and pastoralist Nathaniel Buchanan.
The Gurindji would have had no appreciation that someone from outside their community ‘owned’ part of their country.
In 1884, 1,000 cattle were moved onto the land and 10 years later there were 15,000 cattle and 8,000 bullocks. This put incredible pressure on the environment, and the system of land management the Gurindji had developed over many millennia started to break down.
This pattern was repeated across Australia as pastoralists took possession of First Nations lands and stocked them with cattle and sheep.
Traditional ways of life came under intense pressure in this clash between Western and First Nations land usage. First Nations peoples generally wanted to stay on their land; their lives were so connected to the environment there was an existential need for them to remain on Country.
This necessity to stay played into the hands of pastoralists as the cattle and sheep stations required cheap labour, and over the next 70 years First Nations peoples became an intrinsic but exploited part of the cattle industry across Northern Australia.
From 1913 legislation required that in return for their work, First Nations peoples in the Northern Territory should receive food, clothes, tea and tobacco.
However, a report by RM and CH Berndt in 1946 showed that First Nations children under 12 were working illegally, that accommodation and rations were inadequate, that there was sexual abuse of First Nations women, and prostitution for rations and clothing was taking place. No sanitation or rubbish removal facilities were provided, nor was there safe drinking water.
In 1953 all First Nations peoples in the Northern Territory were made wards of the state and in 1959 the Wards Employment Regulations set out a scale of wages, rations and conditions applicable to wards employed in various industries.
However, the ward rates were up to 50 per cent lower than those of Europeans employed in similar occupations and some companies even refused to pay their First Nations labourers anything.
In 1965 the North Australian Workers Union, under pressure from the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights, applied to the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to delete references in the Northern Territory’s pastoral award that discriminated against First Nations workers.
Pastoralists met this proposal with stiff opposition and argued that any increase in wages should be gradual as this would help First Nations peoples to ‘adjust’. The commission agreed to increase wages but deferred implementation of its ruling by three years, a process that saved pastoralists an estimated $6 million.
The Buchanan family had sold what was then called Wave Hill station to the international meat-packing company Vestey Brothers in 1914. On the station, the deferment of the commission’s ruling and the refusal of the Vestey Brothers to pay First Nations workers’ wages led to heated discussions.
Through 1966 no progress was made in negotiations and the Gurindji community led by Vincent Lingiari walked off the station on 23 August.
Consultations went on through the rest of the year amongst the Gurindji, members of the North Australian Workers Union and the Northern Territory Council for Aboriginal Rights, but no agreement was reached and the Aboriginal workers did not return to work.
In April 1967 the Gurindji moved their camp 20 kilometres to Daguragu (Wattie Creek). This was a symbolic shift away from the cattle station and closer to the community’s sacred sites.
The change demonstrated a fundamental difference between the view of the Gurindji and that of their white supporters on the purpose of the strike. The Gurindji were focused on reclaiming their land while the unionists believed the dispute was solely about wages and work conditions.
Shortly afterwards the Gurindji drafted a petition to Governor-General Lord Casey asking him to grant a lease of 1,300 square kilometres around Daguragu to be run cooperatively by them as a mining and cattle lease. A key statement in the document was, ‘We feel that morally the land is ours and should be returned to us’.
In June 1967 the Governor-General replied that he was unwilling to grant the lease.
The Gurindji stayed on at Daguragu even though under Australian law they were illegally occupying a portion of the 15,000 square kilometres leased to Vestey Brothers.
Over the next seven years petitions and requests moved back and forth between the Gurindji, the Northern Territory Administration and the Australian Government in Canberra but nothing was resolved.
The coming to power of the Labor Party in 1972 changed the political landscape. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced in his election policy speech that his government would ‘establish once and for all Aborigines’ rights to land’.
In March 1973 the original Wave Hill lease was surrendered and two new leases were issued: one to the traditional owners through their Murramulla Gurindji Company and another to Vestey Brothers.
In August 1975 Prime Minister Whitlam came to Daguragu and ceremonially returned a small portion of Gurindji land to the traditional owners by pouring a handful of soil into Vincent Lingiari’s hand with the words, ‘Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people’.
The Gurindji strike was instrumental in heightening the understanding of First Nations land ownership in Australia and was a catalyst for the passing of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, the first legislation allowing for a claim of title if the First Nations claimants could provide evidence for their traditional relationship to the land.
In September 2020 the Gurindji claim for native title to Wave Hill station was granted, 54 years after the walk-off that helped to spark Australia’s First Nations land rights movement.
