Arguably Australia’s most famous court decision, the Mabo ruling may also have helped Australia win the right to host the 2000 Olympics. See what one historian had to say.
According to historian and author Henry Reynolds, the tale hinged on how African nations perceived Australia’s treatment of First Nations people.
Mr Reynolds told the story at the Mabo Oration event in Townsville on June 2, a biennial event which this year was delivered by constitutional lawyer Professor Megan Davis.
During a panel discussion after Professor Davis’ speech, Mr Reynolds said the Australian group organising the Olympic bid were concerned about the Games going to Beijing, because Australia typically did not typically get many votes from the African nations.
The Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games held on September 15, 2000 at Stadium Australia in Sydney, Australia. Picture: David Madison/Getty Images
An Australian delegation, including former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, his wife Margaret, and vice president of the Sydney Olympic Bid Committee John Coates went on a “barnstorming” tour of 12 African countries in 30 days during 1993, Mr Reynolds said.
This was in the wake of the Mabo decision being handed down in June 1992.
Mr Whitlam, who died in 2014, told Mr Reynolds that African leaders continually questioned Australia’s treatment of Aborigines.
Eddie Koiki Mabo. The Mabo v. Queensland decision ruled that the lands of this continent were not terra nullius or ‘land belonging to no-one’ when European settlement occurred. Mr Mabo led the case, along with Reverend David Passi, Sam Passi, James Rice and Celuia Mapo Sale.
“And Whitlam said, ‘I was able to tell them about the Mabo judgment’.”
“Now there is no doubt,” he said, “the reason why we got the Olympic Games was we shifted some African votes from China to Australia because of Mabo.
“I remember, along ago, just after the (Mabo) case there was a T-shirt that people wore that said ‘Captain Cook stole our land, Koiki Mabo got it back’. Well I think Koiki Mabo also got us the Sydney Olympics,” Mr Reynolds said.
John Coates told the Bulletin he invited Mr Whitlam because the former Prime Minister had chaired a UNESCO conference on anti-apartheid in Paris.
Mr Whitlam may have mentioned the Mabo decision in some of the meetings with African heads of state, governments and Nelson Mandela, but Mr Coates could not recall.
Mr Mandela was elected President of South Africa the following year.
Cathy Freeman of Australia gesturing after lighting the cauldron at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney on September 15, 2000. Ms Freeman become the first Indigenous Australian to win an individual gold medal at the Games. Picture: Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP
In Mabo v. Queensland, the High Court of Australia ruled that the lands of this continent were not terra nullius or ‘land belonging to no-one’ when European settlement occurred, and that the Meriam people were “entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of (most of) the lands of the Murray Islands”.
The five Meriam people were Eddie Koiki Mabo, Reverend David Passi, Sam Passi, James Rice and Celuia Mapo Sale.