The Mabo Centre At Melbourne University: A legacy betrayed

Disclaimer: Readers please be advised that this article mentions people who have passed away, and acts of racism and genocide.

My name is Boneta-Marie Mabo. I am the eldest granddaughter of Eddie Koiki and Dr Bonita Mabo.I’ma mother, an artist, and a prison abolitionist. For the past 15 years, I have walked alongside criminalised and imprisoned girls as a youth worker, community arts worker, and youth programs manager at Sisters Inside, and have recently stepped away from those roles.

The Mabo name is more than my grandfather’s legacy—it is also mine to carry, in honour of my ancestors and the ongoing fight for justice.

At this moment in history, I feel a deep, unrelenting rage. I refuse to be silent or complicit in the injustices unfolding—not only here in so-called Australia but globally.

As bell hooks asks, “What does our rage at injustice mean if it can be silenced, erased by individual material comfort?” Rage can be consuming, but it is also a tool—a force that demands engagement in the full spectrum of emotions tied to the Black struggle for self-determination.

I write from this place of rage, but also from curiosity, sadness, love, joy, pride, belonging, and power.

On 8 May 1989, I sat beside my grandfather in our home on Clipper Street, Inala, drawing in his diary, unaware of the significance of the words written on that same page. My grandfather, whom I call Ata, and my grandmother, Nornie, were staying with my mother, my sisters, and me—as they often did. At the time, I didn’t understand why they came so frequently, only that their visits were always filled with love.

Years later, on my 21st birthday, Nornie gifted me a printed copy of that diary page. It was then that I truly understood its meaning. From 1988 to 1990, while we lived in Inala, Ata and Nornie spent much of their time in Brisbane for court hearings. On 8 May 1989, that was why they were there.

Among the entries in his diary that day, Ata had written: “Boneta-Marie turned five years old while her grandfather fought in court for the land her ancestors owned before her. Her markings are below.”

My childhood scribbles now carry a weight I couldn’t have imagined then—a reminder that even as a child, I was present in history being made.

Supplied by author

Palestinian writer and researcher Jamal Nabulsi states, “Indigenous sovereignty expresses the ongoing Indigenous presence and connection to ancestral lands.
It is ontologically grounded in the land and, as such, withstands any settler attempt to extinguish it.” This truth defined my grandfather’s fight. He won our land back not through the settler legal system alone, but through the strength of Indigenous sovereignty—deeply rooted in culture, kinship, and our relationship with the land, sea, and sky.

The Mabo Centre

The University of Melbourne has recently established the Mabo Centre, a centre in my grandfather’s name, a space supposedly dedicated to Indigenous justice and self-determination.

The name Eddie Koiki Mabo carries immense significance. It represents land rights, sovereignty, and the long fight against colonial dispossession. The landmark Mabo case overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius, affirming that Blakfellas have lived on and cared for these lands for tens of thousands of years.

In my disappointment of having my grandfather’s and my name connected to the Mabo Centre, I was also enraged. I have  had to sit with the full range of emotions to really be able to articulate what the problem was.

The media release for the Mabo Centre claimed it would “bring together the sector and academia to translate Native Title rights into economic prosperity.” But using my grandfather’s name for this purpose is a contradiction on multiple levels. Land rights were never about economic prosperity—they were about justice, sovereignty, and the recognition that the land was never terra nullius. In reality, Native Title has primarily benefited lawyers and anthropologists, not the communities it was meant to serve, because the legal and bureaucratic process involved in land claims require costly expertise that only reinforces their professional authority and professional gain.

The media release also proudly announced, “The Mabo Centre welcomes Rio Tinto as its founding partner.” The irony is astounding, especially when the very next sentence boasts that “The Mabo Centre will undertake research to identify best practices.” Best practices for what? Corporate partnerships that blakwash the legacy of land theft?

The release also stated that “the centre was conceived after long consultation,” yet the Centre ignored Zenadth Kes cultural protocols during the long consultation. My father, Eddie Mabo Jr.—the eldest son of Eddie Koiki Mabo and the most senior Mabo family member—didn’t even know the Mabo Centre existed until I asked him about it after its launch.

This centre seems far removed from the radical Blak activism that defined my grandfather’s legacy. Instead, it looks like more of the same—where so-called experts profit off Native Title while the people it was meant to empower are left behind.

The Hypocrisy of Funding: Rio Tinto’s Ongoing Desecration

Rio Tinto, one of the world’s biggest mining companies, has a long and well-documented history of destroying Indigenous lands for profit. In 2020, the company blew up Juukan Gorge, a 46,000-year-old sacred site of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama Pinikura peoples in so-called Western Australia. It was an act of violent erasure—one that sparked outrage, yet ultimately led to no real accountability.

Across so-called Australia, Rio Tinto and other extractive industries continue to strip land, poison waterways, and displace communities, all in the name of profit. The fact that the Mabo Centre has accepted funding from this corporation is a direct insult to my grandfather’s fight for land justice.

I cannot reconcile the fact my family’s name is now attached to something that aligns itself with the very forces my grandfather fought against. How can a centre in his name be funded by the same industries that uphold the colonial theft he spent his life resisting?

Climate Change and the Betrayal of Mer Island

Mining is not just a land rights issue—it is also a climate issue. And climate change is deeply personal to Zenadth Kes.

My grandfather fought for Mer Island, the land of my ancestors, where our people have lived for generations. But that same island is now being swallowed by rising seas, a direct result of mining and fossil fuel extraction. Zenadth Kes is on the frontlines of climate change, watching as the waters creep closer, my ancestors’ gravesites on Mer have been submerged, and cultural heritage washed away.

In 2019, the Torres Strait 8—a group of Zenadth Kes Islanders—took legal action against the Australian government for failing to act on climate change. Their case made one thing clear: the destruction of land is not just historical; it is happening right now. And Rio Tinto, as one of the world’s biggest polluters, is complicit in this destruction.

How can a centre honouring my grandfather take money from the same industry responsible for the rising waters threatening his homeland? My grandfather lost his life fighting for Mer Island, and now, the island itself is at risk of disappearing because of the very industries funding this Centre.

Not all Blakfellas are fighting for the same vision of sovereignty. On one side, there are the conservative Blaks—those who operate within settler-state sovereignty, like the Mabo Centre and its delegates, driven by economic prosperity and institutional recognition. On the other, there are the radical Blaks—activists like my grandfather and I —who are and were committed to true Indigenous sovereignty, abolitionist principles, and global anti-colonial solidarity.

I recognise this divide is not always black and white, but from where I stand, the contrast is stark. One form of sovereignty seeks legitimacy within the colonial system; the other fights to dismantle it entirely.

Settler State Sovereignty vs. Indigenous Sovereignty

State sovereignty refers to the power of a government to rule over a defined territory, create laws, and enforce them. In so-called Australia, state sovereignty is based on colonial rule, where the British Crown claimed ownership over the land, despite the fact that it was already occupied by Blakfellas.

Indigenous sovereignty, on the other hand, is an inherent and pre-existing sovereignty that Blakfellas hold over their lands, cultures, and governance systems. It is not something that was given or granted by the state—it has always existed. Indigenous sovereignty is relational rather than hierarchical, meaning it is based on relationships with the land, water, sky, and community rather than control over people and borders.

The colonial legal system of so-called Australia refuses to recognise full Indigenous sovereignty because doing so would mean acknowledging that the state itself has no legitimate claim to these lands. Instead, the state allows limited forms of recognition through Native Title and Land Rights legislations which are not sovereign land rights or land back.

The Connection Between Sovereignty, Land, and Incarceration

The denial of Indigenous sovereignty is directly tied to the mass incarceration of Blakfellas. Since colonisation, policing and criminalisation have been tools to assert state control over land, targeting Aboriginal people as threats to colonial sovereignty. Today, these patterns continue through the mass incarceration of Blak people and the removal of children under the guise of protection.

Carceral systems uphold colonial rule. Prisons and police operate like the dormitories, missions, and reserves of the past—designed not for safety, but for containment, assimilation, and dispossession. The 1865 Industrial and Reformatory Schools Act legally sanctioned the incarceration of Aboriginal children for being born to Aboriginal mothers, confining them in so-called schools that were, in fact, prisons. This Act has since evolved into the Child Protection Act (1999) and Youth Justice Act (1992), continuing the legacy of state control.

These laws were not protective—they were strategic tools to sever cultural ties, erase identity, and enforce dependence on the state. Blakfellas were criminalised not for wrongdoing, but for existing outside colonial norms.

Native Title and Land Rights laws offer limited recognition, but operate within a framework that upholds state sovereignty. The requirement to prove continuous connection to land ignores the brutal history of forced removals, missions, incarceration, and genocide. Colonisation caused these disruptions, yet the law uses them to deny land rights.

Even when granted, Native Title provides restricted rights, easily extinguished for state or corporate interests. Land justice, under this model, is conditional—not sovereign. True justice requires dismantling these colonial frameworks and restoring land on Blak terms.

From Local to Global: The Connection to Palestine

Like Blakfellas in so-called Australia, Palestinians resist settler-colonial systems that deny sovereignty and self-determination. Both peoples have had their lands stolen through laws that justify dispossession. Native Title rarely returns true land back, just as Israeli land policy denies Palestinians their right to return and reclaim their homelands.

State violence connects our struggles. Militarised policing, mass incarceration, and surveillance are tools used to suppress resistance—whether through over-policing in Blak communities or military occupation in Palestine. These are not separate injustices, but shared tactics of colonial control.

Some associated with the Mabo Centre have framed Palestinian oppression primarily through the actions of Hamas, ignoring the broader reality of Israeli settler-colonial violence. Reducing this struggle to a conflict between two sides erases the systemic dispossession at its core.

True solidarity cannot be selective. The occupation of Palestine is not just about Hamas—it is about land theft, displacement, and the denial of Indigenous sovereignty. To support justice for Blakfellas while excusing colonial violence elsewhere is not solidarity—it is complicity.

As Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We cannot call for land back here while ignoring land theft and genocide in Gaza. Solidarity must be full. If the Mabo Centre is to mean anything, it must stand with all Indigenous struggles—not only those deemed politically safe.

Global Abolition Lens 

Abolition is not just about ending prisons—it’s about dismantling colonial systems that criminalise Indigenous existence and reimagining a just world rooted in sovereignty and care. From so-called Australia to Palestine, settler-colonial rule is upheld by carceral and militarised violence designed to displace and erase Indigenous peoples.

Prisons, police, and military occupation are not separate from colonialism—they enforce it. In Palestine, this takes the form of apartheid and mass incarceration. In so-called Australia, it’s seen in the over-policing and imprisonment of Blakfellas, and laws like Native Title that offer only conditional recognition while protecting state control.

The Mabo Centre, by taking money from Rio Tinto, a major agent of land theft and environmental harm, reinforces the very systems that dispossess Indigenous peoples. Rather than challenging colonial power, it reforms it—undermining the radical legacy of my grandfather and other Indigenous struggles for justice.

These issues—land rights, incarceration, climate crisis, and global solidarity—are not separate. They are deeply connected. My grandfather’s fight was never just about land; it was for all Indigenous lives. “When I was only 21 I became involved in street politics because it was my belief that something had to be done to alleviate the problems for the Aboriginal people… ended up in jail and being arrested many times,” he said. His activism was radical, broad, and relentless.

Angela Davis reminds us, “We constantly have to make connections… nothing happens in isolation.” Abolition is inseparable from land back, climate justice, and decolonisation. Naming these connections doesn’t blur our struggle—it makes it stronger. Only by seeing the full picture can we truly fight for liberation.

My Family

Following the launch of the Mabo Centre, media coverage framed the concerns raised by my sisters and I as a family dispute. The violence is how it shifts the narrative from systemic accountability to family drama. It weaponises our relationships to deflect from the power and influence of mining corporations and institutions that continue to profit from stolen land. This tactic is a colonial tool—used to discredit resistance by sowing division, painting us as fractured rather than focused, and distracting from the deeper truth: that our grandfather’s legacy was never about financial gain, but about justice, sovereignty, and the dismantling of colonial structures.

To twist this into a spectacle of family tension is to silence the real concerns my family and I raise—this is a form of erasure, of both our political voices and our collective grief. Our family can hold love, disagreement, and truth simultaneously. The real violence is in the ongoing dispossession, in the co-option of our grandfather’s name for institutional legitimacy, and in the refusal to reckon with the systems he fought to change.

Mabo

The Mabo Centre carries a name deeply rooted in Mer Island, tracing back to the Piadram clan of Las—one of the eight traditional clan groups of Mer, the clan that my grandfather and I belong to. Before colonisation, the name Mabo was exclusively given to a man of the Piadram clan, anchoring it to place, identity, and cultural continuity.

My grandfather knew the boundaries of our land long before the courts did—and he fought for them with his life. The name Mabo is not just a legal milestone or a brand—it is sacred, woven into the struggle for land rights, sovereignty, and resistance. Over time, that name has been absorbed into systems it once resisted—first through Native Title, now through institutions aligned with extractive industries.

I speak not to claim authority, but to uphold the integrity of a legacy that belongs to many, and that must not be diluted. This name—our name—carries the weight of ancestral land and global struggle. It must be held with care.

Names matter. They carry legacy. I was named after my grandmother Bonita, and I carry the name of my grandfather and our ancestors—Mabo. These are not just names; they are responsibilities. And in their names, I will always speak, carrying their vision into a new generation.

Thirty-six years after my grandfather wrote in his diary, “her mark shown below,” I will continue to leave my mark.