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Land Rights Movement: The Mabo Case And Wik Decision

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2. Examine the importance of the following for the land rights movement: Native title –Mabo case and Wik decision. (5 marks)
Aboriginal people experienced and still experiencing effects from the dispossession on their spiritualities. However, through the Land Rights movement Aboriginal people achieved part ownership to the land that is rightfully belongs to them. The three land rights movement, Native title, Mabo and Wik have an essential importance and significance to the Aboriginal people.
The Native title:
The Native title is of great importance for the land rights movement and for the Aboriginal Dreaming. The Native title recognises the rights of indigenous people on relation to the areas of land and water belonging to their particular …show more content…

The state of Queensland (1992) is of great important to the land rights movement. In 1982, Eddie Koiki Mabo and a group of others took the government to court, as they wanted a legal recognition of the land because their ancestors and families had lived there. The Mabo case has a spiritual significance, as in the court Mabo and his fellow plaintiffs repeatedly quoted stories and morals related with Mambo’s ancestral deity and they explained how the land is related to their ancestors and has a significant importance. Father Dave Passi, another plaintiff in the case said “It is my father’s land, my grandfather’s land. I am related to it, it gave me my identity. If I don’t fight for it, then I will be moved out and I will be the loss of my identity.” Mabo stated that “terra nullius” had never legally existed and that it had been wrongfully applied to Australia. Although, the lost the case, the Mabo case was taken up to high court and as a result eighteenth months later, in response to the Mabo decision Federal Parliament passed the Native Title Act (1933). One of the High Court judges involved in the Mabo case, Justice Brennan, described native title as; “Indigenous inhabitants' interests and rights in land, whether communal groups or individuals, under their traditional laws and customs”. Thus, the Native title act was established as a result of the Mabo

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