Bonita Mabo recalls Eddie Mabo’s land rights battle, 2008

Transcript of sound recording

Well, they said it wasn't his land, it was government land. And then that made him go out and fight for it. He said: 'No, that's not ... that's my land and no b******s are going to keep me away from that land. That's my land. That was handed down from generation to generation to him, so no b******s are going to take it from me.'

I think the island people, they didn't really understand what he was doing because a lot of them were sort of, you know, they were against him. To a certain extent, I think, there's a lot of them that still don't really understand it all. A lot of the families up the island, you know, they're sort of: 'Oh, he did it for himself, and never did it for anybody else, only for himself'.

Well, that's all he could do it - for himself - because he didn't own any other land, and he only did it on his land. And they couldn't understand that, you know, what he did was for ... to set an example for everybody. But right throughout his case, you know, like he'd say he's going to win, you know, 'I'm going to win this', you know. And I'd say to him 'Eh, hold on, you know, what if ...?' And oh, as soon as I said that - well man, if looks could kill, I would have been a dead person. You know what I mean? [laughs].

Even on his deathbed he said, now … that he's going to win and he said, 'When the judgement comes down', he said, 'I would like it to be a national holiday for all Australians'.