A respected Aboriginal leader has proposed an ambitious plan to stop ‘stat dec blackfellas’ from falsely claiming to be indigenous.
Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) chief executive Nathan Moran says “Kinship Councils” will prevent Australians without genuine links to Aboriginal culture from speaking on behalf of Indigenous people.
Moran criticized the state and federal governments in a heated meeting last week, arguing the current three-part test for determining Aboriginal identity, also known as the tripartite test, was not being applied correctly.
He said the kinship council would be made up of “verified” indigenous elders and native title holders who would ensure laws were followed.
The test requires the person to have biological ancestry from Aboriginal peoples, identify as Aboriginal and be accepted in the community in which they live.
“We held Aboriginal forums to address fraud in 2016 and 2018. At both forums everyone said what’s missing is an Aboriginal Kinship Council, a council of verified Aboriginal peoples,” Moran told the Daily Telegraph.
He said members of the Aboriginal Kinship Council “would be elders and native title holders, people associated with a land council” and would prevent people from setting up a corporation and “trading as Aboriginal”.
Moran said Australian Indigenous Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy and New South Wales Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Harris were open to the proposal.
Respected Aboriginal leader Nathan Moran (pictured) says ‘Kinship Councils’ will prevent Australians without genuine links to Aboriginal culture from speaking on behalf of indigenous people.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek (pictured) has been criticized by territorial council leaders for not listening to her views on cultural heritage claims.
Indigenous Australian opposition spokesperson Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said Aboriginal fraud was a growing problem and she was open to the idea.
“As Minister Plibersek’s Blayney mine debacle makes clear, this is a serious issue that must be resolved,” he said.
“Many traditional owners I know are very distressed by the rise of opportunists and the reinvention of culture to benefit political and personal goals.”
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has been criticized by territorial council leaders for not listening to her views on cultural heritage claims.
Ms Plibersek has been criticized for her decision to block the development of a billion-dollar gold mine in Blayney, central western New South Wales, on cultural grounds, based on the views of an Aboriginal corporation, not from Orange LALC.