Mabo v Queensland is an important decision of the High Court of Australia. The decision is notable for having recognised that some Indigenous Australians have proprietary rights to land, in a legal form of ownership referred to as "native title".
Edward Koiki Mabo was an Indigenous Australian man from the Torres Strait Islands known for his role in campaigning for Indigenous land rights and in a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that overturned the legal doctrine of terra nullius that characterised Australian law with regard to land and title.
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of 48,000 km2 (19,000 sq mi), but their total land area is 566 km2 (219 sq mi).
Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous peoples of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped with them as Indigenous Australians. Today there are many more Torres Strait Islander people living in mainland Australia than on the Islands.
Murray Island is the only town on Mer 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 is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians have rights and interests to their land that derive from their traditional laws and customs. The concept recognises that in certain cases there was and is a continued beneficial legal interest in land held by Indigenous peoples which survived the acquisition of radical title to the land by the Crown at the time of sovereignty. Native title can co-exist with non-Aboriginal proprietary rights and in some cases different Aboriginal groups can exercise their native title over the same land.
The second question of the 1967 Australian referendum of 27 May 1967, called by the Holt Government, related to Indigenous Australians. The question was in two parts: whether to give the Federal Government the power to make laws for Indigenous Australians in states, and whether in population counts for constitutional purposes to include all Indigenous Australians. The term "the Aboriginal Race" was used in the question.
The Meriam 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. 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.
Mabo v Queensland , was a significant court case decided in the High Court of Australia on 8 December 1988. It found that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act 1985, which attempted to retrospectively abolish native title rights, was not valid according to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
In an Australian context, South Sea Islanders refers to Australian descendants of Pacific Islanders from more than 80 islands in the South Seas – including the Melanesian archipelagoes of the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Vanuatu – who were kidnapped or recruited between the mid to late 19th century as labourers in the sugarcane fields of Queensland. Some were kidnapped or tricked into long-term indentured service. At its height, the recruiting accounted for over half the adult male population of some islands.
Saibai Island is an island of the Torres Strait Islands archipelago, located in the Torres Strait of Queensland, Australia. The island is situated north of the Australian mainland and south of the island of New Guinea. The island is a locality within the Torres Strait Island Region local government area. The town of Saibai is located on the north-west coast of the island. In the 2016 census, Saibai Island had a population of 465 people.
Meriam or the Eastern Torres Strait language is the language of the people of the small islands of Mer, Waier and Dauar, Erub, and Ugar in the eastern Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. In the Western Torres Strait language, Kalaw Lagaw Ya, it is called Mœyam or Mœyamau Ya. It is the only Papuan language in Australian territory.
Yam Island, called Yama or Iama in the Kulkalgau Ya language or Turtle-backed Island in English, is an island of the Bourke Isles group of the Torres Strait Islands, located in the Tancred Passage of the Torres Strait in Queensland, Australia. The island is situated approximately 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of Thursday Island and measures about 2 square kilometres (0.77 sq mi). In the 2016 census, Iama Island had a population of 319 people.
Darnley Island or Erub in the native Papuan language, Meriam Mir, is an island formed by volcanic action and situated in the eastern section of the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. It is one of the Torres Strait Islands and is located near the Great Barrier Reef and just south of the Bligh entrance. The town on the island is also called Darnley, but the locality is called Erub Island, both being within the local government area of Torres Strait Island Region. In the 2016 census, Erub Island had a population of 328 people.
The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, long name A Bill to make Provision for the better Protection and Care of the Aboriginal and Half-caste Inhabitants of the Colony, and to make more effectual Provision for Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Opium, 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.
Stephen Island, called Ugar in the native language, is an island in an easter island group of the Torres Strait Islands archipelago, located in the eastern section of Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. The island is within the locality of Ugar Island within the local government area of the Torres Strait Island Region.
A Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) is the name for a system of community-level land trust established in Queensland to administer former Aboriginal reserves and missions. They came about through the enactment by the Queensland Government of the Community Services Act 1984 and Community Services (Aborigines) Act 1984 in 1984, allowing community councils to be created to own and administer former Aboriginal reserves or missions under a Deed of Grant in Trust). The trusts are governed by local representatives who are elected every three years to councils called Incorporated Aboriginal Councils. These councils have the power to pass by-laws, appoint police for the community, and are responsible for maintaining housing and infrastructure, running the Community Development Employment Program and issuing hunting, fishing and camping permits. As such, they work much like a local government, but are different in character as they own the land they administer on behalf of the community.
Indigenous land rights in Australia, also known as Aboriginal land rights in Australia, relate to the rights and interests in land of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, and 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.
Mabo: Life of an Island Man is a 1997 Australian documentary film on the life of Indigenous Australian land rights campaigner Eddie Koiki Mabo.
Saibo Mabo was an Australian bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. He served as an assistant bishop in the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland from 2002 to 2015, and as National Bishop to the Torres Strait Islander people during that time.
