Terra Nullius, and those who have relied upon it

[All the following erroneous beliefs are fully referenced in Michael Connor's The Invention of Terra Nullius, Macleay Press, 2005]

Prime Minister Paul Keating: ‘ The lie was terra nullius — the convenient fiction that Australia had been a land of no one. The truth was native title '.

Chief Justice Gerard Brennan: ‘The view was taken that, when sovereignty of a territory could be acquired under the enlarged notion of terra nullius , for the purposes of the municipal law that territory (though inhabited) could be treated as a ‘desert uninhabited' country.'

Justice William Deane and Justice Mary Gaudron: ‘at the time of the establishment of the Colony, it “consisted of a tract of territory practically unoccupied, without settled inhabitants or settled law”. Their statement to that effect was thereafter seen as au­thoritatively establishing that the territory of New South Wales had, in 1788, been terra nullius not in the sense of unclaimed by any other European power, but in the sense of unoccupied or uninhabited for the purposes of the law.

Justice Michael Kirby: ‘It was lawyers who invented the notion of terra nullius and denied Aboriginals their land rights until, in Mabo, lawyers changed the law's direction.'

Justice Michael Kirby: ‘… the common law doctrine of terra nullius '

Justice John Toohey: ‘One thing is clear. The Islands were not terra nullius . Nevertheless, principles applicable to the acquisition of territory that was terra nul­lius have been applied to land that was inhabited.'

Justice Lionel Murphy: ‘Around the world land was claimed under the false pretence that it was unoccupied or terra nullius '.

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson: ‘the pernicious common law theory of terra nullius — which in countries “discovered” by European explorers allowed native inhabitants to be treated as if they were part of the flora and fauna.'

Professor Henry Reynolds: ‘The doctrine underlying the traditional view of settlement was that before 1788 Australia was terra nullius , a land belonging to no-one.'

Professor Charles Rowley: ‘The white Australian legal system was established on the basic doctrine of terra nullius — the assumption that the continent was not “really” occupied.'

Professor Alan Atkinson: ‘New South Wales was terra nullius , a land hitherto free, not only of sovereignty but of ownership by anyone; a blank page ready for the pen of empire.'

Professor Peter Read : ‘the assumption of terra nullius , by which the British Crown justified its declaration of sovereignty, foreshadowed emotional attachments to the land unencumbered by Aboriginal attachments as surely as the doctrine implied legal title unencumbered by Native title.'

Professor Stuart Macintyre: ‘The British authorities took possession of New South Wales according to the doctrine, derived from international law, that it was terra nullius , land belonging to nobody.'

Professor Stuart Macintyre: ‘The whole claim of sovereignty and ownership on the basis of terra nullius was manifestly based on a misreading of Australian circumstances, not that this prevented Phillip from hoisting the Union Jack in 1788 and expropriating the owners of Sydney Cove.'

Professor Tim Flannery: ‘... a reactionary old Australia with its belief in terra nullius and an emerging, post-colonial and reconciled Australia .'

Professor Ann McGrath: ‘ Terra nullius , or unoccupied land, was the legally endorsed premise of the British occupation of Australia . This convenient imperial fantasy has long shaped Australia 's past, and history writing and teaching has provided it longevity in both law and the popular imagination.'

Associate Professor Bain Attwood ‘... the British government determined in 1785 that New Holland was a terra nullius , that is, no-man's land.'

Associate Professor Richard Broome: ‘the British government decided that Australia was “ terra nullius ” and took possession of it without asking the native inhabitants.'

Associate Professor Chris Cunneen: ‘It is not difficult to point out the traditions of judicial racism among members of the higher courts in Australia as their decisions are reported. Such racism can be seen at the grand level of the “big lie” of terra nullius which became firmly imbedded in the nation's history.'

Dr John Connor: ‘The argument of terra nullius , first cited by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government (1689–90) to justify the British dispossession of the native Americans, was used to ignore native sovereignty of the Andaman Islands in 1789 as well as to claim that Australian Aborigi­nes had no title to their land.' [There is no mention of terra nullius in the Second Treatise of Government , or anywhere else in Locke's writings]

Museum Victoria : ‘There was an open attempt to exterminate Aboriginal people from the landscape in order that the mythology of terra nullius might become a reality.'

Melanie Lazarow: ‘From the start of recent Australian history the British, presuming Aborigines to be non-human savages, applied the principle of vacuum domicilium (or terra nullius ) which accorded the Aborigines no civil right to the land.'

Lisa R. Jackson and Jeanette E. Ward: ‘The common law principle of Terra Nullius — a territory belonging to no one — was applied unilaterally.'

Dr Jim McAllister: ‘‘The landscape of the Australian continent was assumed to be empty — terra nullius — upon the arrival of Europeans ...'

Genevieve Lord: ‘The idea of terra nullius was the core of a way of imagining what happened at the time of European settlement that has sustained the consciousness of non-indigenous Australians.'

Ben Wadham: ‘The notion of terra nullius is a representation of the rationality underlying the operation of dominance and legitimation of violence in Australian colonialism.'

Melissa Nursy-Bray: ‘ The declaration of “Terra nullius” or “land of no people” by Captain Cook, in 1788 [sic], gave a mandate for “white” Australians, to ignore indigenous rights.'

Dr Christopher Kelen: ‘ Terra Nullius was, as the Republic now is, based on a prospective nostalgia: the law imagined the land clear of blacks.'

Dorothy Parker ‘The establishment of a British colony in 1788 was justified by a racist ideology later expressed by the “Terra Nullius” concept.'

Barbara Miller: ‘Declaring Australia Terra Nullius , uninhabited, and killing off any Aboriginal resistance to land seizure with superior weaponry, diseases, poisoned water-holes and flour laced with arsenic, the British settlers set up institutions and governments which have perpetrated their violent domination ...'

Doctors Paul Delfabbro and Andrew Day: ‘In 1788, when colonization occurred, Australia was considered as terra nullius (translated literally as land of no people).'