Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The fight for Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia
The fight for Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia
The fight for Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The fight for Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia
Eddie Koiki Mabo was a successful land rights activist born on Mer (Murray) Island in the Torres Strait in 1936. When he was sixteen, he was exiled from the island and lived in Queensland and the Torres Strait before moving to Townsville with his young family in 1962. In 1982 Mabo and four other islanders took legal action to the High court, claiming ownership of their lands on Murray Island. The case went for over ten years until the lands were ruled as being not ‘terra nullius’ and the Meriam people then gained the rights to own their land. From an early age, Mabo was taught about his family’s land. In 1959 he moved to Townsville and settled down with his wife and children. He started becoming more involved in the community around Townsville, becoming an activist in the 1967 Referendum campaign, helping to found the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Service and co-founding and directing Townsville’s black community school. Mabo’s motivation towards land rights didn’t start until 1974, when he was working as a gardener at James Cook University. Two historians, Noel Loos and Henry Reynolds recall a …show more content…
At the conference he explained the traditional land ownership and inheritance system that his community followed on Mer Island. Afterwards, a lawyer in the audience noted the significance of his speech and suggested there should be a test case to claim land rights through the court system. In 1982, Eddie Koiki Mabo and four Mer islanders took their case of ownership of their lands on Mer Island to the Queensland Supreme Court. With Eddie Mabo as the leader the case became widely known as the ‘Mabo case’. After the court ruled against them, the islanders took the case to the High Court. On 3 June 1992 (ten years later), the court decided in favour of the Islanders and ruled that ‘the Meriam people of the Torres Strait did have native title over their traditional
Eddie Mabo was a recognised Indigenous Australian who fought for his land, Murray Island. Mabo spent a decade seeking official recognition of his people’s ownership of Murray Island (Kwirk, 2012). He became more of an activist, he campaigned for better access for indigenous peoples to legal and medical services, to house, to social services and to education. The Mabo case was a milestone court case which paved the way for fair land rights for indigenous people. The Merriam people wanted to ensure its protection. Eddie Mabo significantly contributed to the civil and land rights of Indigenous people in Australia due to his argument to protect his land rights. In a speech in 1976, at a conference on the redrawing of the Torres Strait border, Mabo articulated a vision for islander self-determination and for an independent Torres Strait Island (Stephson, 2009).
The primary source is the Proclamation of Governor Bourke, dated 10 October 1835.The source is an agreement between Governor Bourke and Aborigines. The purpose of this agreement is to legalise the native land is owned by the Crown (Government) ensuring Torres Islanders claim no ownership or sovereignty over land. The Proclamation of Governor Bourke was a document written by Sir Richard Bourke, KCB, the
As European domination began, the way in which the European’s chose to deal with the Aborigines was through the policy of segregation. This policy included the establishment of a reserve system. The government reserves were set up to take aboriginals out of their known habitat and culture, while in turn, encouraging them to adapt the European way of life. The Aboriginal Protection Act of 1909 established strict controls for aborigines living on the reserves . In exchange for food, shelter and a little education, aborigines were subjected to the discipline of police and reserve managers. They had to follow the rules of the reserve and tolerate searchers of their homes and themselves. Their children could be taken away at any time and ‘apprenticed” out as cheap labour for Europeans. “The old ways of the Aborigines were attacked by regimented efforts to make them European” . Their identities were threatened by giving them European names and clothes, and by removing them from their tra...
In the nineteenth century, the “History wars” became the fight between the most prominent historians revolving around the deception of frontier conflict between the labor and coalition. The debate aroused from the different interpretations of the violence that took place during the European colonization and to what degree. It became a crisis in history, emerging from the dispossession of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (ATSI) that resulted in exclusion of their traditions and culture. The ATSI were the first people of Australia that brought along a different culture, language, kinship structures and a different way of life (Face the Facts, 2012). Post European colonization was a time where the ATSI people experienced disadvantage in the land they called home. With the paramount role as future educators, it demands proficient knowledge on the Australian history and one of the most influential moments in our history started from the first European settlers.
Since the 1990s, the protections that native title grants have been defined under a number of case law and statute law provisions. In Mabo [No 2], the High Court ruled that Australia’s status as terra nullius was invalid and that native title had existed as a part of Australian law since 1788 . Additionally, Mabo v Queensland (1988) 166 CLR 186 (“Mabo [No 1]”) found that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985 (QLD) was inconsistent with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and thus invalid in its deliberate curtailing of Indigenous land rights in the Queensland area. Although the concessions granted in both Mabo cases gave unprecedented recognition to native title, it was also the precursor to the creation of limited legal rights in order for the Australian and Indigenous legal systems to coexist. The community backlash after Mabo [No 2], especially among pastoralists and farmers who feared their existing land rights would be eroded by a wave of native title claims , led the Keating Government to create the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) . This was done in an effort to codify Mabo [No 2] in statute law, give federal recognition to the land rights of the Indigenous peoples, and to guide native titles co-existence with current Australian land rights. The Act was further amended by the Howard Government in 2007 , and
Thurston, Lorrin A. “A hand-book on the annexation of Hawaii.” Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection (1897).
It demonstrated just what can be achieved when determined people join together to make the effort to combat injustice. The Mabo case and its legacy were driven by Mabo the activist, his family and fellow plaintiffs, and a key support cast of lawyers, academics and now film-makers. Food for thought as we lead up to a referendum on the constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.” Professor Joseph says as she ends her
In 2004, a study seeking public opinion towards Mabo found that not everyone was in favour of land rights for Indigenous people. The Australian Election Study was based on information obtained from surveys. Twenty-five per cent of the respondents in the 2004 survey felt that change in Aboriginal land rights had not gone far enough. Almost twice that many considered that change had gone too far. And about one-third of the respondents were of the view that change had been to the right extent. In other words, most of the respondents were either satisfied with the progress in land rights or were of the view that the progress had gone too far.
Charles Nelson Perkins was an inexorable activist who sought justice and equality. He influenced the succession of Aboriginal liberties leading various constitutions that supported Indigenous freedom and rights. The extent and description of his influence will be explored throughout this essay concluding his impact on the referendum that enables Aborigines citizenship and government.
The Moriori are a peaceful people inhabiting the Chatham Islands of New Zealand. Morioris are actually a close relative of the well known Māori polynesian tribe. Unlike the Māori, the Moriori have committed their lives to a peaceful, nonviolent lifestyle known as the Nunuku’s Law. Although commendable, this decision played an integral part in their ultimate demise. The Moriori Genocide is one of the most devastating mass killings to date, resulting in the close extinction of the entirely pure Moriori bloodline, and yet has not received proper attention it deserves from the world. This may be the first you have ever heard of the Moriori, my goal in this paper is to properly tell the story of polynesian tribe that so long ago
Australia’s Indigenous people are thought to have reached the continent between 60 000 and 80 000 years ago. Over the thousands of years since then, a complex customary legal system have developed, strongly linked to the notion of kinship and based on oral tradition. The indigenous people were not seen as have a political culture or system for law. They were denied the access to basic human right e.g., the right to land ownership. Their cultural values of indigenous people became lost. They lost their traditional lifestyle and became disconnected socially. This means that they were unable to pass down their heritage and also were disconnected from the new occupants of the land.
Before the arrival of the Polynesians around 950-1130 A.D., New Zealand was unknown of to mankind. The Great Fleet, a mass arrival of Polynesians, arrived in 1350. From these ancestral people came the tribes of Maori and Marori. These two tribes were quite alike, as they branched off from the same ancestors and arrived to NZ at the same time. They lived similar lifestyles as well, such as passing on oral traditions, hunting and gathering, basketry, and more. At this time, the tribes lived a stone-age culture. However, the main difference between the two was that the Marori were very peaceful people. Due to this, they became extinct as of 1933.
The Maori King Movement or Kingitanga was a movement that emerged among the Maori tribes in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand. The origins of the Kingitanga stemmed from similar, smaller scale pan-tribal movements that cropped up amongst the Maori tribes in the central North Island in the early 1850’s, but it wasn’t till 1858 that the Kingites actually crowned a king of this monarch in Potatau Te Wherowhero, a well known war chief at the time. Maori initiated the Maori King Movement or Kingitanga on the basis of wanting to establish a monarch to gain some influence and match the colonising people, the British.
In 1769, Captain James Cook circumnavigated the two main islands aboard the Endeavour . Initial contact with the Maoris also proved violent but Cook, impressed with the Maoris' bravery and spirit and recognising the potential of this newfound land, grabbed it for the British crown before setting sail for Australia.When the British began their antipodean colonising, New Zealand was originally seen as an offshoot of Australian enterprise in whaling and sealing: in fact, from 1839 to 1841 the country was under the jurisdiction of New South Wales. However, increased European settlement soon proved problematic: a policy was urgently required regarding land deals between the settlers (Pakeha) and the Maori. In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, with the Maori ceding sovereignty of their country to Britain in exchange for protection and guaranteed possession of their lands. But relations between the Maori and Pakeha soon soured (the Maoris became increasingly alarmed at the effect the Pakeha had on their society while the Pakeha rode roughshod over Maori rights outlined in the treaty). In 1860, war broke out between them, continuing for much of the decade.
The Treaty of Waitangi held many agreements and promises. It held many rights within it also. For the Crown, it granted the right to governorship, not sovereignty, over Maori land. But for Maori, there were many more rights for iwi and hapu that the Treaty contained. Maori were granted the right to full rangatiratanga of their lands, they had the right that the Crown would protect them from further invasion of their land and Maori were also given the same rights and privileges as British people. With the Treaty came many responsibilities to both the Crown and Maori. The Crown had a responsibility to govern the land, not possess the land, but merely guard it. In the Treaty of Waitangi the Crown granted Maori rangatiratanga over their lands, so the Crown had a responsibility to let Maori have chieftainship over their lands and taonga, and with that The Crown also had the responsibility to actively protect Maori and Taonga. The Queen, the Crown and all of Britain had a responsibility to honour the Treaty, in which th...