Mabo v Queensland is a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that recognised the existence of Native Title in Australia. It was brought by Eddie Mabo against the State of Queensland and decided on 3 June 1992. The case is notable for being the first in Australia to recognise pre-colonial land interests of Indigenous Australians within the common law of Australia.
Wik Peoples v The State of Queensland is a decision of the High Court of Australia delivered on 23 December 1996, on whether statutory leases extinguish native title rights. The court found that the statutory pastoral leases under consideration by the court did not bestow rights of exclusive possession on the leaseholder. As a result, native title rights could coexist depending on the terms and nature of the particular pastoral lease. Where there was a conflict of rights, the rights under the pastoral lease would extinguish the remaining native title rights.
Edward Koiki Mabo was an Indigenous Australian man from the Torres Strait Islands known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights in Australia, in particular the landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that recognised that indigenous rights to land had continued after the British Crown acquired sovereignty and that the international law doctrine of terra nullius was not applicable to Australian domestic law. High court judges considering the case Mabo v Queensland found in favour of Mabo, which led to the Native Title Act 1993 and established native title in Australia, officially recognising the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.
Australian Indigenous sovereignty, also recently termed Blak sovereignty, encompasses the various rights claimed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples within Australia. Such rights are said to derive from Indigenous peoples' occupation and ownership of Australia prior to colonisation and through their continuing spiritual connection to land. Indigenous sovereignty is not recognised in the Australian Constitution or under Australian law.
Murray Island in the Torres Strait Island Region, Queensland, Australia. The island is part of the Murray Island Group in the Torres Strait. The town is on the island's northwest coast and within the locality of Mer Island. The island is of volcanic origin, the most easterly inhabited island of the Torres Strait Islands archipelago, just north of the Great Barrier Reef. The name Meer/Mer/Maer comes from the native Meriam language. In the 2016 census, Murray Island had a population of 453.
Native title refers to rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rights were first recognised as a part of Australian common law with the decision of Mabo v Queensland in 1992. The doctrine was subsequently implemented and modified via statute with the Native Title Act 1993.
The Racial Discrimination Act 1975(Cth) is an Act of the Australian Parliament, which was enacted on 11 June 1975 and passed by the Whitlam government. The Act makes racial discrimination in certain contexts unlawful in Australia, and also overrides state and territory legislation to the extent of any inconsistency.
The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt government, related to Indigenous Australians. Voters were asked whether to give the Commonwealth Parliament the power to make special laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether Indigenous Australians should be included in official population counts for constitutional purposes. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.
Melanesian Meriam people are an Indigenous Australian group of Torres Strait Islander people who are united by a common language, strong ties of kinship and live as skilled hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans on a number of inner eastern Torres Strait Islands including Mer or Murray Island, Ugar or Stephen Island and Erub or Darnley Island. The Meriam people are perhaps best known for their involvement in the High Court of Australia's Mabo decision which fundamentally changed land law in Australia - recognising native title.
Commonwealth v Tasmania was a significant Australian court case, decided in the High Court of Australia on 1 July 1983. The case was a landmark decision in Australian constitutional law, and was a significant moment in the history of conservation in Australia. The case centred on the proposed construction of a hydro-electric dam on the Gordon River in Tasmania, which was supported by the Tasmanian government, but opposed by the Australian federal government and environmental groups.
Human rights in Australia have largely been developed by the democratically elected Australian Parliament through laws in specific contexts and safeguarded by such institutions as the independent judiciary and the High Court, which implement common law, the Australian Constitution, and various other laws of Australia and its states and territories. Australia also has an independent statutory human rights body, the Australian Human Rights Commission, which investigates and conciliates complaints, and more generally promotes human rights through education, discussion and reporting.
Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd, also known as the Gove land rights case because its subject was land known as the Gove Peninsula in the Northern Territory, was the first litigation on native title in Australia, and the first significant legal case for Aboriginal land rights in Australia, decided on 27 April 1971.
The Native Title Act 1993(Cth) is a law passed by the Australian Parliament, the purpose of which is "to provide a national system for the recognition and protection of native title and for its co-existence with the national land management system". The Act was passed by the Keating government following the High Court's decision in Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992). The Act commenced operation on 1 January 1994.
The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897(Qld), was an Act of the Parliament of Queensland. It was the first instrument of separate legal control over Aboriginal peoples, and was more restrictive than any contemporary legislation operating in other states. It also implemented the creation of Aboriginal reserves to control the dwelling places and movement of the people.
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty to that land by another colonising state. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, the content of aboriginal title, the methods of extinguishing aboriginal title, and the availability of compensation in the case of extinguishment vary significantly by jurisdiction. Nearly all jurisdictions are in agreement that aboriginal title is inalienable, and that it may be held either individually or collectively.
Indigenous land rights in Australia, also known as Aboriginal land rights in Australia, are the rights and interests in land of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia; the term may also include the struggle for those rights. Connection to the land and waters is vital in Australian Aboriginal culture and to that of Torres Strait Islander people, and there has been a long battle to gain legal and moral recognition of ownership of the lands and waters occupied by the many peoples prior to colonisation of Australia starting in 1788, and the annexation of the Torres Strait Islands by the colony of Queensland in the 1870s.
Akiba on behalf of the Torres Strait Regional Seas Claim Group v Commonwealth of Australia [2013] HCA 33; 250 CLR 209 is a landmark Australian judgment of the High Court. The matter related to Native title rights, their extension to other persons and their extinguishment by Statute.
The Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985 was an Act of the Parliament of Queensland, the intent of which was to retroactively abolish native title claims by Torres Strait Islanders to islands off the coast of Queensland, specifically Murray Island. It was passed in response to court proceedings started by the Torres Strait Meriam people led by Eddie Koiki Mabo, who were attempting to have their land claims recognised by the common law. The Act was condemned by supporters of the Indigenous Australian civil rights movement. The act was overturned in the 1988 Mabo v Queensland High Court case, which found it inconsistent with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
Mabo v Queensland may refer to:
