Events
Mabo Day 2023
Mabo Day 2023
Mabo Day 2023 – Sunday, 3rd June
Mabo Day is marked annually on 3 June, commemorating Mer Island man Eddie Koiki Mabo and his successful efforts to overturn the legal fiction of terra nullius, or ‘land belonging to no-one’.
Despite the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occupied the land, spoke their own languages and had their own laws and customs before colonisation, terra nullius represented an active denial and erasure of Indigenous existence in Australia.
Following the Mabo decision, Australia’s Federal Parliament passed the Native Title Act 1993 which established a legal framework for native title claims throughout Australia by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
During Reconciliation Week, we take the opportunity to reflect on the legacy of Eddie Mabo’s fight for recognition against historic injustice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and how we can better support a unified and strengthened Australia.
