Social justice is what faces you in the morning. It is awakening in a house with adequate water supply, cooking facilities and sanitation. It is the ability to nourish your children and send them to school where their education not only equips them for employment but reinforces their knowledge and understanding of their cultural inheritance. Mick Dodson, Annual Report of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Social Justice Commissioner, 1993.
Social justice means being entitled to the same rights and services as all other citizens.
These rights have been difficult to achieve for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders because of a history of governmental and colonial racism. Non-Aboriginal Australia has developed on the racist assumption of an ingrained sense of superiority that it knows best what is good for Aboriginal people. Imagine if ours was the oldest culture in the world and we were told that it was worthless. Imagine if we had resisted this settlement, suffered and died in the defence of our land, and then were told in history books that we had given it up without a fight. Imagine if non-Aboriginal Australians had served their country in peace and war and were then ignored in history books.