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A National Holiday for 3 June Mabo Day

Eddie Mabo Jnr

3 June 2003 - On the 11th Anniversary of the High Court Mabo decision, I launched a petition on behalf of my family to call for 3 June to be declared a national public holiday.

We believe that a public holiday would be fitting to honour and recognise the contribution to the High Court decision of not only my father and his co-plaintiffs, James Rice, Father Dave Passi, Sam Passi and Celuia Salee, but also to acknowledge all Indigenous Australians who have empowered and inspired each other.

To date we have not had a public holiday that acknowledges Indigenous people and which recognises our contribution, achievements and survival in Australia.

A public holiday would be a celebration all Australians can share in with pride – a celebration of truth that unites Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and a celebration of justice that overturned the legal myth of terra nullius - Mabo symbolises truth and justice and is a cornerstone of Reconciliation.

Eddie Mabo - For the Mabo Family

Source: ATSIC

related links :

• Eddie Mabo Day petition (PDF, 85kb) -- petition (Word, 38 kb)
• Eddie Mabo proclaims great southern rainbow republic
  November 14, 2003 - MELVILLE ISLAND, ANTIPODEAN STANDARD DREAMTIME: The eternal spirit of Eddie Mabo officially proclaimed the the Great Southern Rainbow Republic of Antipodea late today, in a small ceremony on the island formerly known by British Colonial Office bureaucrats as ‘Melville’. The ceremony was attended by over a dozen spirit generations of ‘Australians’ of all nationalities, races and creeds, along with countless numbers of the island’s original inhabitants, stretching back beyond all recorded White Man’s time.
• The Aborigines are still waiting for equality
  June 8, 2002 - The 10th anniversary of the High Court's Mabo land rights decision, which dismissed the fiction of terra nullius.. passed almost unnoticed.
• How the PM's 'national interest' hijacked native title
  June 4, 2002 - Just as many people thought the 1967 referendum and the citizenship rights it conferred on Aborigines would transform our life experience and deliver equality, so too many people placed great hope in the ability of the Mabo decision 10 years ago to right the wrongs of the past and belatedly deliver social justice to the land's original owners. by Aden Ridgeway.
• Australia marches backwards on its Aborigine rights
  4 June 2002 - Independent (UK) - Reconciliation is off the agenda, the optimism has evaporated and race relations are as polarised as ever. Thanks to John Howard, Keating's successor, the Mabo legacy has been a tale of lost opportunities and crushed aspirations.
• Mr Mabo is entitled to be an agitator
  February 11, 1999 - "He was in the best sense a fighter for equal rights; a rebel; a free-thinker; a restless spirit; a reformer, who saw far into the future and into the past. In all this he embodies in Australia a long and noble tradition of fighting for black rights."

Further information: native title issues page - includes news index and external links