Paul Coe

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Paul Coe (b. ), a Wiradjuri man, is an Australian Aboriginal lawyer and activist.

He was active in campaigns around the 1967 referendum and the establishment in 1972 of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, working with Pearl Gibbs, Chicka Dixon and Billy Craigie in the fight for basic human rights and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

He played an important role at the Aboriginal Legal Service.

In 1979, as a young barrister, he took an action in the High Court of Australia arguing that at the time white people came to Australia, Aborigines were here and therefore the Court had to recognise their rights. (Paul Coe vs. Commonwealth of Australia ).

His claim was rejected on technical grounds; all of the judges except one rejected the notion that Aborigines had any rights to land. Thirteen years later the High Court of Australia accepted Coe's argument, ruling in Mabo that Aboriginal rights did survive after European arrival and were recognised under the guise of native title.