His helicopter landed on the beach. He brought two other white men with him. Another two aircraft landed at the strip a kilometre away, bringing more white men and some white women with large television cameras, still cameras and notebooks.
They rode along a pot-holed, dusty track and walked inside on the of few brick buildings on the island _ a low building painted inside and out in Third World colours: yellow, turquoise, bright blue and red, but dirty.
The colour choice is to brighten economically deprived lives. You see them in many Pacific islands, El Salavador and any number of African countries. But this is Australia. It is Murray island, head of the Great Barrier Reef and subject of the Mabo decision.
From the air, a church surrounded by coconut palms can be made out near the beach. On the approach side of the island houses cling to the tiny flat strip. The hill beyond is bare grass. On the other side cliffs, drop to the sea. Reef and bright blue shallow water go out from the other three sides. Superficially, it is a tropical island paradise.
On the sea, the tidal current runs at 9 knots. On land, the political current is just as strong, threatening to carry away a people with over-expectation.
The white man in the helicopter is to add to the tide; but he does not know it. He will be on the island barely two hours. Only after he and the gang of whites who came with them are carried into the sky, do we find out.
Hewson is eager to point out that Murray Island is unique. Its land tenure system is detailed. Individuals know precise boundaries. His aim is to drawn a distinction between mainland Aborigines and island culture in the hope of restricting the application of the Mabo case.
The islanders are pleased with this distinction. For decades they have resented being lumped in with them. Slowly they have forged a separate identity. The Mabo case initially was proof of that. Now it has, they think, been hijacked by mainlanders.
Dr Hewson acknowledges to the islanders their attachments to the land. He sympathises with their earlier frustration at not getting land rights. Islanders think he is on their side.
A more cynical interpretation is just that he is not on the side of the mainland claims, but few leading islanders see it that way.
In a pace alien to the island way, Hewson and his party visit the school; it is almost election time again. He sings with the kids, and plays touch. A bare-foot island boy is too elusive: he weaves through the Country Road and elastic-sided Hewson team _ unlike his elders.
They visit the grave of land-rights campaigner Sam Passi and then ascend back to the mainland. Lazy quiet returns to the island.
Mabo joint plaintiff and elder Jimmy Rice is over the moon. Hewson is on their side. President of the elders Doug Bon is delighted he could give Hewson a copy of the traditional Law of Malo.
But the chair of the Community Council, Ron Day, is non-committal. There is some irony here. Earlier, the elders did not want Hewson on the island at all. Day, however, at a public meeting, persuaded the islanders they should hear what he had to say and put to him their views.
Slowly the fundamental difficulty with the Mabo decision becomes clear. While all the white boys are worried about digging up minerals and running cattle, in the black communities Mabo presents an insoluble difficulty.
The court said that to have native title you must (as far a practicable) adhere to traditional ways. On Murray Island that means elders determining land tenure _ who occupies which and what they can do on it. But in any part of Australia, however remote, determination of land use is a local government matter for the elected local community council _ it is an essential part of democratic self-determination at the local level.
Justice Brennan said that if you move away from traditional ways you lose native title. How, therefore, are these communities to sit in both worlds? As the legitimate calls for better education, health, telecommunications and especially housing are hopefully met, the links to the land inevitably lessen.
You can see it on Murray Island: a school, medical centre, new council houses, a Telecom aerial, a water treatment tank all have to be placed on land. Whose land? Under whose control? _ elders or an elected standard local council?
We’ve got a long way to go yet with the Mabo case.