When the High Court handed down its Mabo decision, it cracked open the legal fiction at the heart of the nation. Terra Nullius was gone.

For John Howard, then in opposition, it provided an opportunity. He framed the moment not as correction, but as a threat. A story was spun to suburban and regional Australia: Your backyard, your lease, your livelihood were suddenly, all under threat.

For Howard, the real battle was over the nation’s conscience. He dismissed what he called the “black armband” view of history and described the violence and dispossession of the past as mere “blemishes” on an otherwise proud national story.

He refused to apologise to the Stolen Generations, rejecting the idea that the nation owed a moral debt. In its place, he chose pride over reckoning — and ideology over truth.

Author and political commentator Amy Remeikis has spent months tracing the threads of Howard’s legacy, not just the policies, but the narratives that made them possible.

This is The Howard Effect, a three-part series from 7am marking 30 years since John Howard’s ascent to power. Episode three – “Who belongs”.

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