18/02/2026
Since Mabo, we were told the law would recognise our rights and help restore justice. And in many ways it did. But let’s speak honestly about the other side of the story — the wave of litigation that has swept through Aboriginal communities, often leaving division, exhaustion, and fractured families in its wake.
For more than three decades, too many of our disputes have been funnelled into courtrooms where culture is dissected under cross-examination, where connection to Country is reduced to legal argument, and where the adversarial system — by its very nature — rewards conflict over consensus. Brothers against brothers. Elders challenged. Families split into “applicants” and “respondents.”
The legal fraternity has undoubtedly played a role in securing important wins. But we must also ask: has the system become too comfortable with a model that keeps disputes alive, bills mounting, and communities locked in cycles of contest? When process becomes an industry, unity can become collateral damage.
Our old people resolved differences through authority, dialogue, and responsibility to the collective. Today, too often, we are told the only path is litigation — lengthy, technical, and emotionally draining — while relationships bear the cost.
This is not about rejecting the law. It’s about demanding that it serve our people, not divide them. We should be investing far more in mediation, cultural governance, and solutions that strengthen community rather than setting us against each other.
Mabo opened the door. But if we are honest, the journey since has sometimes felt less like recognition and more like a battlefield of competing claims, legal strategies, and procedural fights.
The question we should all be asking — lawyers, leaders, governments, and communities — is simple:
Are we building a future grounded in unity and respect, or are we allowing a system to keep us arguing over the past?
It’s time to have that conversation.
