Mark Leibler has used the 70th birthday of the law firm that bears his name to warn that the same weapons used against the Jewish people – dispossession, disrespect and racism – are being used against Indigenous Australians in the debate over the Voice.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton was a noticeable absentee, with the room dominated by Labor figures and a who’s who of the Melbourne business community, including brothers Paul and Andrew Bassat, Antony Catalano, Raphael Geminder, Matthew Grounds, Ahmed Fahour, incoming Transurban CEO Michelle Jablko, David Smorgon, Max Beck, Ruslan Kogan, Carsales CEO Cameron McIntyre, Alex Waislitz, Elana Rubin, Joe Longo, Simon McKeon and Allan Myers.
Noting that ABL started advising the Yorta Yorta peoples in their struggle for native title in the early 1990s, Mr Leibler said: “I am ashamed to say that I was oblivious then to the injustices Indigenous Australians continued to suffer.”“How they had been scarred by dispossession, disrespect and racism – similar weapons that have been used against the Jewish people for millennia,” he told the crowd of more than 900 people at the Grand Hyatt’s Savoy Ballroom.
“Noel has often described our two peoples as sharing a ‘land-based identity’ – historical and spiritual,” he said.