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Aboriginal Australia When Australia was first settled in 1788 the international law of terra nullius was applied. The basis of this was that the natives that inhabited Australia did not appear to have a class structure or rule of law and that the land was not being utilised efficiently for agriculture. Australia was annexed under the legal tradition of settlement. At the time of settlement it was noted by Sir Joseph Banks that the land was indeed terra nullius as there was no way to communicate or negotiate with the small population of natives. Over the past century and indeed the last decade Australia’s history is being rewritten with the rejection of the doctrine of terra nullius through the High Court. Recognition of Aboriginal law, native title and possession of the land at the time of settlement has come to fruition through legal cases such as Mabo (1992) and Wik (1993) and the establishment of the Native Title Act (1993) and the amended Native Title Act (1998). Major developments in recent history in regards to native title have been the court’s decisions in the Mabo case (1992) and the Wik case (1993). The Mabo case (1992) was brought about by Eddie Mabo and a group of Torres Strait Islanders who took the S