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Keywords: Mabo

  • AUSTRALIA

    Building constitutional bridges: In conversation with Frank Brennan

    • David Halliday
    • 28 June 2024

    It's been eight months since the Voice referendum, and people are starting to grapple with what its defeat means for Australia. There are few voices in Australia as qualified to conduct a postmortem of the outcome of the Voice referendum campaign as Frank Brennan. We examine what lessons can be learned and crucually, whether there’s reason for hope for Indigenous constitutional recognition.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sorry Days for reconciliation

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 May 2024

    This Reconciliation Week and Sorry Day, we consider the defeat of the Referendum and the substantial failure to close the gap between the living conditions of Indigenous Australians and other Australians. It means that for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, this week will be less about days of celebration than of grief and of grim resolve to continue to seek justice.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Mabo, Keating and a Voice

    • Kevin Keeffe
    • 16 March 2023
    10 Comments

    Despite the lack of formal consultation with Indigenous peoples at the time, Paul Keating invested significant political capital in designing the Native Title Act and establishing a comprehensive social justice package. As the debate on the Voice intensifies, Indigenous Australians should be afforded the right to offer their Voice and be heard on issues as fundamental as native title.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The justice of Sir Francis Gerard Brennan

    • Michael Kelly
    • 16 June 2022
    3 Comments

    The Court in Mabo, where Brennan J led majority, put an end to the notion of Terra Nullius, by which the British could claim that land in Australia was ripe for the picking because it belonged to no one, and opened the claims to land ownership to a much wider group including the traditional owners. The follow-up judgement in Wik took that understanding even further.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Seeing the con in reconciliation

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 28 May 2020
    12 Comments

    Reconciliation week itself begins on the 27th May, the anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, which granted Aboriginal people the right to be counted in the census. The anniversary of the Mabo ruling in the High Court rounds out the week. Yet every year, I would swear that this week means nothing more to most people in this country than to call on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their workplaces and community to do more work.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    RIP David Passi, last surviving Mabo plaintiff

    • Frank Brennan
    • 26 June 2017
    7 Comments

    Anglican priest, traditional landowner and land rights campaigner David Passi has died. He was the last surviving plaintiff in the historic Mabo decision. A year after the Mabo decision I travelled to the Torres Strait and met James Rice and Passi, the two successful litigants in the case. Returning by boat to the mainland from the island of Mer in the Murray Islands, the waters of the Torres Strait were exceedingly calm.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Too little law in Newman's Queensland

    • Frank Brennan
    • 24 February 2014
    5 Comments

    'Three decades on, Queensland once again has a premier who finds some political advantage in skewing the balance between law and order, impugning the integrity and vocation of the legal profession. He has described defence lawyers as hired guns.' Professor Frank Brennan SJ addresses the Queensland Law Society Dinner, 30 years on from his book Too Much Order with Too Little Law.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Eddie Mabo's legacy

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 July 2013
    4 Comments

    'If my mob were to arrive by boat today uninvited, they would be sent to Papua New Guinea. 150 years ago, the traditional owners helped my ancestors and their fellow passengers to find safe anchorage so that they might settle here permanently calling Australia home.' Frank Brennan speaks on 'Eddie Mabo's legacy of equality, non-discrimination and agreement', Mabo Oration Response at the Playhouse, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, 21 July 2013 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Dusty feet on the road to reconciliation

    • Frank Brennan
    • 08 July 2013
    8 Comments

    150 years ago the David McIver entered Hervey Bay carrying 404 immigrants, including my great great grandmother Annie. Some of the crew rowed to shore, where they were met and helped by two Aboriginal men. Who'd have thought that over a century later, one of Annie's great grandchildren would be a judge in the landmark Mabo native title case.

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  • CARTOON

    The Coalition's secret weapon

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 12 June 2013
    1 Comment

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • CARTOON

    Good ole Aussie humour

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 04 June 2013
    5 Comments

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    On the brink of native title history as Mabo comes of age

    • Paul Newbury
    • 03 June 2013
    3 Comments

    The Mabo decision of 3 June 1992 changed the course of Australian history and set the blueprint for native title determinations. Twenty-one years on, the Noongar people of Australia's south west are on the threshold of achieving the most momentous and comprehensive outcome to date of the native title process.

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