Indigenous Voice to Parliament is next step, says Betty Mabo

Eddie Mabo’s daughter, Betty, believes an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is the next step in achieving reconciliation, saying Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have come a long way but there is still much more to achieve.

Speaking 29 years to the day after her father’s landmark win in the High Court established native title for Indigenous Australians, Mabo declared that ‘‘today we have a big smile on our face – we can do this, it is our rights’’.

She said her father would be immensely proud of the strides taken by Indigenous Australians over the past three decades but he would still be striving for more reconciliation. Asked if a Voice to Parliament was the next momentous step in Indigenous recognition, Ms Mabo said ‘‘yes’’.

‘‘More work to be done, yes. Our rights, our equal rights, our land rights – everything that we are now,’’ she said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Thursday Island.

The federal government had promised a referendum during this term of parliament on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders but abandoned it during the pandemic.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March there was still no clear consensus on the proposal. While the government is committed to legislating a Voice to Parliament and, separately, constitutional recognition, it does not want to enshrine the Voice in the constitution.

As she does every year, Mabo this week led a march through the main streets of Thursday Island, in the Torres Strait, to celebrate Mabo Day on June 3. Similar celebrations were held throughout the Torres Strait Islands on Thursday.

Eddie Mabo, who was also known as ‘‘Koiki’’, waged a decade-long battle to have the High Court of Australia recognise his native title claim to the Torres Strait island of Mer (or Murray Island).

Speaking after leading the march, Mabo said it was ‘‘a day for us to celebrate because of what he did’’.

‘‘He fought for us. It means everything to me. It means an education and a history for our children, our youth and the community.’’

Betty, now 65, was adopted by Mabo’s sister, Jessie, through a customary adoption practice known as Kupai Omasker – which was only made legal by the Queensland government last year. But Jesse died soon afterwards, and Mabo adopted Betty as his daughter when she was about two years old. She had nine siblings growing up; Mabo and his wife Bonita had seven biological children and adopted three children.

‘‘I’m proud of who he was – at his young age, he took me into his life and raised me from one to two years old, all the way until I got married,’’ Mabo said.

When she went to study in Cairns after school, her father worked as a gardener at James Cook University in Townsville. Mabo said he used his lunch and tea breaks to go into the university’s library to study Australian law.

‘‘It makes me proud. A man came from nowhere – an island man, nobody knew him whatsoever, he didn’t have a good education,’’ she said.

‘‘He [Eddie Mabo] was a yardman cleaning the garden, and then at the same time on his tea break and lunch break he goes into the library and sits there and studies the law. And he says to himself ‘one day I am going to fight for my people about this’, and he did it.’’ Betty Mabo

‘‘Picking up bits of everything when he was a yardman cleaning the garden, and then at the same time on his tea break and lunch break he goes into the library and sits there and studies the law.

‘‘And he says to himself ‘one day I am going to fight for my people about this’, and he did it.’’

Mabo and four other plaintiffs from Mer Island commenced proceedings in the High Court in 1982, leading to the historic judgment a decade later that the common law of Australia recognises a form of native title.

He didn’t live to hear the judgment, dying five months before the High Court handed down its decision.

‘‘We celebrate Mabo and we also educate ourselves,’’ his daughter said.

‘‘Here we are, proud people of the land – it is our water where we get all the fish, crays [cray fish], or whatever it is. It is our land, it is our boundaries.’’