A respected Aboriginal leader has proposed an ambitious plan to stop ‘stat dec blackfellas’ from falsely claiming to be Indigenous.
Chief executive of the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) Nathan Moran says ‘Kinship Councils’ will stop Australians with no genuine ties to Aboriginal culture from speaking for Indigenous people.
Mr Moran criticised state and federal governments at a heated meeting last week, arguing that the current three-part test to determine Aboriginal identity, also known as the tripartite test, was not being enforced correctly.
He said the kinship council would comprise of ‘verified’ Indigenous elders and native title holders who would ensure laws were being followed.
The test requires that the person has biological descent from Aboriginal peoples, identifies as Aboriginal and has acceptance in the community that they live.
‘We ran Aboriginality forums to address fraud in 2016 and 2018. At both forums everyone said what is missing is an Aboriginality Kinship Council, a council of verified Aboriginal people,’ Mr Moran told the Daily Telegraph.
He said members of the Aboriginality Kinship Council ‘would be elders and native title holders, people associated with a land council’ and would stop people setting up a corporation and ‘trading as an Aboriginal’.
Mr Moran said Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy and NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Harris were open to the proposal.
Respected Aboriginal leader Nathan Moran (pictured) says ‘Kinship Councils’ will stop Australians with no genuine ties to Aboriginal culture from speaking for Indigenous people
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek (pictured) has been criticised by land council leaders for not listening to their views on cultural heritage claims
Opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said Aboriginal fraud is a growing issue and that she is open to the idea.
‘As Minister Plibersek’s Blayney mine debacle makes clear, this is a serious issue that needs to be resolved,’ she said.
‘Many traditional owners I know are very distressed by the rise of opportunists and the reinvention of culture in aid of political and personal objectives.’
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has been criticised by land council leaders for not listening to their views on cultural heritage claims.
Ms Plibersek has been blasted for her decision to block development of a $1billion gold mine at Blayney in NSW’s central-west on cultural grounds, based on views of an Aboriginal corporation, not the Orange LALC.
