INDIGENOUS DATES OF SIGNIFICANCE

26 May - National Sorry Day

National Sorry Day offers the community the opportunity to acknowledge the impact of the policies spanning more than 150 years of forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.  The first National Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998 following the 1997 HREOC report “Bringing Them Home” which recommended that a national day of observance be declared.

27 May to 3 June - National Reconciliation Week

National Reconciliation Week was initiated in 1996 to provide a special focus for nationwide activities.  The week is a time to reflect on achievements so far and the things which must still be done to achieve reconciliation.

National Reconciliation Week offers people across Australia the opportunity to focus on reconciliation, to hear about the cultures and histories of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, and to explore new and better ways of meeting challenges in our communities.

The Week is timed to coincide with two significant dates in Australia’s history, which provide strong symbols of our hopes and aims for reconciliation:  27 May and 3 June.

27 May - 1967 Referendum

In 1967 over 90% of Australians voted in a Referendum to remove clauses from the Australian Constitution which discriminated against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.  The Referendum also gave the Commonwealth Government the power to make laws on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

3 June - Mabo Day

Mabo Day marks the anniversary of the High Court of Australia’s judgement in 1992 in the Mabo case.  This is a particular day of significance for Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Eddie “Koiki” Mabo’s name is synonymous with native title rights.

His story began in May 1982 when he and fellow Murray (Mer) Islanders David Passi, Sam Passi, James Rice and Celuia Salee instituted a claim in the High Court for native title to the Murray (Mer) Islands in the Torres Strait.

The claim was made against the State of Queensland, which responded by seeking to legislate to extinguish retrospectively any native title on the Islands.  This was challenged in the High Court on the grounds that it was inconsistent with the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act.  The High Court, in an historical judgement delivered on 3 June 1992, accepted the claim from Eddie Mabo and the other claimants that their people (the Meriam people) had occupied the Islands of Mer for hundreds of years before the arrival of the British.  The High Court found that the Meriam people were ‘entitled as against the whole world to possession, occupation, use and enjoyment of lands in the Murray Islands.”  The decision overturned a legal fiction that Australia was terra nullius (a land belonging to no‑one) at the time of colonisation.

1 July - Coming of the Light

This is a particular day of significance for Torres Strait Islander Australians.  It marks the day the London Missionary Society first arrived in the Torres Strait.  The Missionaries landed at Erub Island on 1 July 1871.  This event pays tribute to their belief in Christianity.

Religious and cultural ceremonies across the Torres Strait and Torres Strait Islander communities on the mainland are held on this day.

8-15 July - National NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC Week is the outcome of a long history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander efforts to bring issues of concern to the attention of Governments and the general public.

In 1924, the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association, (AAPA) was formed in Sydney under the leadership of Fred Maynard. The AAPA tried to raise the awareness of the struggle of Aboriginal people but were forced to abandon their work in 1927 due to constant harassment by the police.

In 1932 William Cooper, from Cummeragunga, formed the Australian Aborigines League in Melbourne. In protest to the conditions under which Aboriginal people were forced to live, Cooper drafted a petition to King George V. The Commonwealth Government informed him that this would be an unconstitutional act.

In February 1935, Cooper called for a deputation to the Federal Minister to the Interior asking for representation of Aboriginal people in Parliament, a unified national Department of Native Affairs and state advisory councils on Aboriginal Affairs. Nothing came of this move. In October 1937, Cooper presented the royal petition to the Commonwealth asking that it be delivered to the King.

The Government was slow to react. On 13 November, Cooper called a meeting of Aboriginal people suggesting that they hold a Day of Mourning on the next Australia Day to publicise their cause and stir the conscience of non-Aboriginal Australia.

William Ferguson also launched the Aborigines Progressive Association (APA) in 1937. Together, William Cooper and William Ferguson planned the first Day of Mourning.

In order to gain public support for the Day of Mourning, William Ferguson and the President of the Aborigines Progressive Association J. T. Patten, wrote a pamphlet entitled "Aborigines Claim Citizen Rights."

The pamphlet called the NSW Aborigines Protection Act 1901-1936 and the Aborigines Protection Board and calling for new policies for Aboriginal affairs, with full citizenship status for Aboriginal people and rights to land.

The following Australia Day, 26 January 1938, the Australian Aboriginal League and the Aboriginal Progressive Association combined to hold a Day of Mourning. The day marked the 150th anniversary of the First Fleet landing at Sydney Cove.

William Cooper then wrote to the National Missionary Council of Australia (NMCA) on January 31, 1939, seeking their assistance in promoting a Day of Mourning.

In January 1940, the Sunday preceding the Australia Day holiday became the first "Day of Mourning" Aboriginal Sunday.

In 1955, the NMCA suggested that Aborigines Day should become a National Day with the aim to change negative attitudes towards Aboriginal people and to include not only the churches, but also Commonwealth and State Governments and other bodies.

Aborigines Day was changed to the first Sunday in July.

In 1957, the National Aborigines' Day Observance Committee (NADOC), with the support and co-operation of the Federal and State Governments, the churches and major Aboriginal organisations, was formed.

In 1957, an Aboriginal Pastor, Sir Douglas Nicholls, persuaded the NMCA to nominate the second Sunday in July to be a day of remembrance of Aboriginal people and heritage.

In 1991, NADOC became known as NAIDOC to include Torres Strait Islanders. NAIDOC is now used widely to refer to all the events and celebrations that go on during National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Week.

Each year NAIDOC Week has a theme. In the past these themes have represented issues important to Indigenous people.

The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) decided in February 1972 that National Aborigines Day on July 14, 1972, would be the occasion for a massive national protest against the needless suffering of Australia's original inhabitants.

Aboriginal people and other concerned people were asked to take part in marches all over the country to show the Federal Government that a substantial number of people cared about the needs of Aboriginal people.

In 1984, the National NADOC committee called for the Federal Government to declare National Aborigines Day a national public holiday.

Many others including ATSIC have since asked that the Government adopt this suggestion so that all Australians can celebrate and recognise Indigenous peoples and cultures that make Australia unique.

Today, NAIDOC celebrations continue to give Australia's Indigenous people the opportunity to display the richness of our culture and heritage to the rest of the Australian community.