83 TAJA zy 1995 zy 6:1& 2 Mabo and Australian Society: Towards a Postmodern Republic z Paul Patton General Philosophy, University of Sydney The Mabo judgement and its political aftermath raise fundamental questions about justice and the nature of Australian society. Because these include questions about the basis of Australian sovereignty, and forms of self-determination for indigenous people, they are likely to have a continuing impact on the republicanism debate. Because they concern the legal and political recognition of cultural difference, these questions test the limits of political and social theories governed by a logic of identity. In this paper, I shall argue that post-structuralist approaches to concepts of society and justice have something to contribute to this debate, because they take difference rather than identity as their point of departure. By the same token, Mabo provides a compelling test for the political consequences of different approaches to the ‘philosophy of difference’ within post- structuralism. It is a measure of the challenge it poses to established ways of thinking that Mabo should evoke such a range of contradictory responses. On the one hand, it has been welcomed as a step towards reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, and to that extent a unifying force in national politics. On the other hand, it has been denounced as divisive and as a threat to ‘the sovereignty and unity of the Australian people’ (Blainey 1993). There is some truth behind both responses, which means that Mabo is not simply either of these things but a paradoxical event in legal as well as political terms. However, whereas identity thinking sees such paradox only as