Australian
Screen

Clip description

Narrator Rachel Perkins and Father Frank Brennan explain legislation brought in by the Queensland government to quash Mabo’s land claim. Barrister Bryan Keon-Cohen QC and historian Professor Marcia Langton of the Yiman-Bidjara Nation describe consequences of the legislation and its eventual dismissal by the High Court of Australia. We see the bicentenary protests on Australia Day 1988, and then Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s reaction to his inability to secure a treaty.

Curator’s notes

The ‘Joh’ referred to by Bryan Keon-Cohen QC is the infamous Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland premier from 1968–87, who is known for his corrupt government, harsh laws against political protest and active restriction of Aboriginal rights. So it seems an obvious move by this right-wing government to ‘legislate the claim out of existence’. Overturning this legislation was a small win for Eddie ‘Koiki’ Mabo’s team, but at least Mabo was able to see some positive results of the trial while he was alive; he died five months before the ultimate decision was made.

The ‘Invasion Day’ protests seen in this clip were a reminder to the general public that ‘white Australia has a black history’ and drew attention to the Aboriginal struggle for land rights and self-determination. It wasn’t until June 1988 that a promise was made to develop a treaty, as a response to a statement of national Aboriginal political objectives known as the ‘Barunga Statement’.

In 1992, with still no sign of a treaty, the band Yothu Yindi, along with musician Paul Kelly and rock group Midnight Oil collaborated to create the song Treaty (1992) as a protest against the failure of the Australian government to honour Hawke’s promise.

Hawke’s successor Paul Keating made some appeasements to Indigenous people with his 1992 ‘Redfern Speech’ and in 1993 with Mabo: An Address to the Nation in which he stated, ‘The lie was terra nullius … the truth was native title’.