The president of the council of elders of Murray Island, Doug Bon, expressed disquiet yesterday about the visit to the island next week by the Leader of the Opposition, John Hewson.
Murray Island, about 150km north-east of Cape York, was declared by the High Court in the Mabo case last year to be owned by the indigenous people.
Mr Bon said yesterday that when elders had first heard on Wednesday about an approach by Senator Ian McDonald (check) on behalf of Dr Hewson, had been against his visit.
They had thought that, because Dr Hewson’s election speech had suggested that he would reduce funding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, he should not come to the island.
Now, however, they were prepared to let Dr Hewson come after a public meeting held on the island about the visit. The meeting had been called by the chairman of the Murray Island Community Council, Ron Day.
The community council, set up under Queensland’s local-government system, is elected by islanders and is responsible for such things as roads, water and rubbish disposal.
The council of elders is responsible for land tenure and cultural matters.
Mr Day explained that Dr Hewson had said he wanted only to listen to what people thought the implications of the Mabo decision would be. Some islanders had still expressed hostility, but it had agreed that Dr Hewson should come on that basis. Coincidentally, at a ceremony yesterday, the first transmission of native title to land since the High Court decision took place under traditional law.
Mr Bon and three other elders handed over about half a hectare of unoccupied land to Elsie Smith, who had returned from the mainland and was in blood line of the previous occupier.
The elders showed Mrs Smith where her borders were, and the previous caretakers of the land agreed to its transmission.
When Dr Hewson arrives on the nine-square-kilometre island on Wednesday he will see that underdevelopment and remoteness are far more important issues for the 400 islanders than land.
He will travel from the airstrip on a rough four-wheel-drive track. He will experience a salty water supply, and see that as many as half the houses still have thunderbox sewerage. There are only 11 telephones on the island and the school goes only to Year 7.
Another elder, Father David Passi, said yesterday, “The Mabo case made no difference. We’ve always owned this land.”
Looking at the island and its land-tenure system, Dr Hewson might, however, find some evidence to support the Liberal Party position that Mabo doctrine might not apply on the mainland.
Murray Island has an elaborate system of individual holdings and the islanders have long practised agriculture.
Aborigines on the mainland, however, were traditionally nomadic and their ties with the land were mainly through sacred sites.
Dr Hewson will meet members of both the community council and the council of elders. He is expected also to be invited to a public meeting the usual way with dealing with issues of major contention on the island.