ABSTRACT
The First Fleet of European colonisers arrived on Gamaraigal land on 26 January 1788. When European colonisers first arrived it is estimated that there were between 300,000 and 1,000,000 Aborigines in Australia and around 500 different regional groups. The early reports of William Dampier, the English pirate/explorer, and Captain Cook and others, generally portrayed the 'natives' of New Holland, as the continent was then called, as small in number, wandering nomadically with no fixed territory and with no recognisable system of laws and customs. This chapter discuses the High Court decision in Mabo and its implications for the reconciliation process. It produces a view of the Mabo legislative response which shows it as damage limitation exercise, closely reflecting the needs of commercial interests and maintaining the established colonial order, rather than an exercise in progressive redress. The chapter legitimises the widespread use of the terra nullius concept in eighteenth century international law, facilitating colonial expansion and dispossession of native peoples.
