Australia celebrates Mabo Day on June 03, 2025, which is so far an official holiday in Torres Shire. Mabo Day commemorates a historic decision by the High Court of Australia in 1992 by which the assumption that Australia had been a terra nullus at the time when the European settlers came, was overturned. It was that assumption, a legal fiction that allowed the settlers to take away the land from the Aborigines because a terra nullus is land that does not belong to anyone. Mabo Day got its name from Eddie Koiki Mabo, a man from Torres Strait Island who arose a campaign for Indigenous land rights. It is due to him and his campaign that Australian landmark law got changed to the benefit of Australian Indigenous people.
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