Reflections on Mabo Day Media coverage : Melbourne Indymedia

Monday's front page picture - 'A Home Away From Rome And A Good Square Meal - The Age 4/6' depiction of Federation Square as a Roman Piazza, as Italians and Italians at heart come out to celebrate Italy's national day, highlights how little interest the fourth estate and Australians have in their own history.

On the 3rd of June 1992, the High Court of Australia acknowledged that Australia's indigenous people had rights to land in law because of their prior occupation of this land. Eddie Mabo - a Torres Strait Islander born on Mer in the Torres Strait, who lived most of his life in Townsville - led a successful decade long campaign through the courts in the 1980's that finally put to rest the ridiculous notion of Terra Nullius. The Mabo judgement marked a pivotal moment in Australian history that Paul Keating as Prime Minister, addressed in his historic Redfern speech.

Despite the Coalition government's attempts to derail the Mabo judgement through their parliamentary "bucket loads of extinguishment" approach to the High Court decision, MABO Day marks the beginning of a long journey towards reconciliation between indigenous and non indigenous Australians based on justice and equity, not charity and paternalism. In the continuing struggle to heal this festering sore, The Age's sins of omission are as significant as the Coalition government's sins of commission.

As one of those 800,000 Australians who claim Italian heritage, who has made Australia his home, MABO Day to me is a much more important and significant day than Italy's national day will ever be. It is a pity that so few Australians, except in the Torres Strait (where the Torres Strait Authority has declared a public holiday to mark the day) and Townsville - the home of Eddie Mabo, are aware of, let alone acknowledge this pivotal moment in Australian history.