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Mabo

Brendan Thoms was born in New Zealand in 1988. He lived permanently in Australia from 1994 but never applied for Australian citizenship. Thoms had long-standing familial connections to Australia. His maternal great-great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother were all born in Queensland. They were Australian citizens and recognised members of the Gungarri People. Thoms’s brother had also been living in Australia since 1994, while his sister was born in Queensland in 1995. She was a citizen and, like Thoms, identified and was recognised as Gungarri. ... (read more)

Since the passage of the Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) and related law reform, legal rights and interests in a significant and growing estate have been transferred to Aboriginal ...

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Australia’s feisty first female High Court judge

John Bryson

 

From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story
by Pamela Burton
UWA Publishing, $49.95 pb, 511 pp, 9781742580982

 

H.V. Evatt, on the hustings during an election campaign, was asked by an eig ...

Some of Australia’s most cogent historical analyses grow out of particular social moments: the close of World War II, the accession (and dismissal) of the Whitlam government, the bicentennial celebrations and protests of 1988. The High Court’s Mabo decision of June 1992 is just such a moment and it is no surprise to find another book which focuses on the aftermath of that landmark decision. Interestingly, In the Age of Mabo is also just as strongly the product of a certain time and political space: the 1991–96 prime ministership of Paul Keating. It is this framework which gives this varied collection of essays its sense of historical occasion; it is also this political underpinning which renders at least one of the contributions nearly obsolete.

... (read more)