TORRES STRAIT – Prime Minister Tony Abbott has paid his respects to indigenous land rights campaigner Eddie Mabo at his final resting place on the Torres Strait island of Mer.
Mr Abbott was accompanied by Mr Mabo’s daughter Gail to lay a wreath on the grave after being greeted by a traditional local welcome and children wearing tribal garments.
“He fought for justice for many years … and now we are a people on the path to reconciliation in large measure because of what Eddie ‘Koiki’ Mabo and his brothers and sisters fought for,” he told a gathering of locals and Mabo family members.