Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet and also to the Jagera, Ugarapul and Yuggera people of my electorate in South-East Queensland. I want to express my sympathy to Bonita, the wife of Eddie Mabo, his immediate family, extended family and friends.

In his famous Redfern speech on 10 December 1992, then Prime Minister Paul Keating described the Mabo judgment as one of the practical building blocks of change. He said it did away with what he described as the 'bizarre conceit' that this continent had no owners prior to European settlement. He went on to say that the Mabo judgment had established a fundamental truth which laid the basis for justice—and that justice is deserving of recognition today, 20 years later. We have so much more to do in closing the gap.

But the lie of terra nullius—that no-one actually occupied the land—was done away with by those brave judges on the High Court of Australia. It showed the High Court at its best and I pay tribute to Sir Anthony Mason and those in the majority who supported Eddie Mabo and his co-litigants. Those litigants had the courage and determination to bring a claim which did away with the falsehood and reveal the fact that our Indigenous brothers and sisters were occupiers of the land well before white settlement took place. Eddie Mabo was not alone. There were a number of people who went with him on that journey—people like David Passi, James Rice and others. I pay tribute to all of them for what they did.

Eddie Mabo was born on 29 June 1936 on Murray Island. He always believed Murray Island belonged to him and his family. He had a variety of different occupations—assistant teacher, deck hand, gardener and groundsman, for example—but he never really believed that he did not own the land and he refused to accept it. When he mentioned that to members of academia in Townsville, who later became his friends, and discovered the concept of terra nullius, that white people did not believe he owned the land, he was incredulous and his great passion was aroused. It took 10 years of litigation to get it to the High Court. As with other great figures of history who died before they saw the final outcome of their efforts—such as FDR, the great US President, and John Curtin in Australia, both of whom died before World War II was concluded—tragically, Eddie Mabo died five months before the High Court handed down the historic Mabo decision which expelled the notion of terra nullius from Australian law and paved the way for a new era of justice and native title legislation.

I pay tribute to Paul Keating and the then Labor government, who had the courage and conviction to prosecute the case for the Native Title Act, which came into being in 1993. It was developed in partnership with Indigenous communities. It was not imposed; it was done with consultation, collaboration and cooperation. The Native Title Act was not uncontroversial. There was a lot of fear, loathing and misinformation spread by those who would foster and create division in our community. Fortunately, however, the House of Representatives and the Senate passed this legislation. The economy was not destroyed, society did not break down and the world did not come to an end, but justice rained down like a river. A whole series of cases emerged as a result of the Mabo decision and native title legislation. I am pleased the government has seen fit to streamline the process, to bring down the reforms we saw in 2009, which gave the Federal Court greater control of native title mediation, and increase the number of consent orders or determinations from 11 in 2008-09 to 24 in 2010-11. I am pleased the federal Attorney-General, on the 20th anniversary of the Mabo decision on 31 May, pointed that out in her speech. There are few people whose lives have touched Australians and will continue to touch them as Eddie Mabo's did, fighting injustice, racism and inequality. His life deserves to be recognised. It was recognised in a telemovie and has been recognised in the history books and on ABC's Four Corners. On a daily basis, his judgment is quoted throughout the country. We pay tribute to him for his courage, his conviction and his belief in the rightness of his case and the cause of justice. For that we pay tribute and we say farewell to a great figure of Australian history, a great Australian and a great man.

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