Mabo Day

Mabo Day occurs annually on 3 June. It commemorates Eddie Koiki Mabo ("c". 29 June 1936–21 January 1992), a Torres Strait Islander whose campaign for Indigenous land rights led to a landmark decision of the High Court of Australia that, on 3 June 1992, overturned the legal fiction of "terra nullius" that had characterised Australian law with regards to land and title since the voyage of James Cook in 1770.
In 2010 a campaign was launched to make it a national holiday in Australia. In 2002, on the tenth anniversary of the High Court decision, Mabo's widow, Bonita Mabo, called for a national public holiday on 3 June. On the eleventh anniversary, in 2003, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) launched a petition to make 3 June an Australian Public Holiday. Eddie Mabo Jnr, for the Mabo family, said: