State Sanctioned Crime: the Aboriginal Industrial Complex
Aboriginal Affairs was created then moved into the social arena aplomb fuelled by unaccountable handouts to state an territory governments and not for profits, not individuals, not addressing basic human needs like shelter, fresh food and law and order.
After 50 years it now represents missed opportunities, lies, failed leadership with an out of control public sector managing it. A web of militant not for profit organisations which hold untapped streams of public funds.
The failed leadership group claims to represent Aboriginal people and there is no evidence to support it. In fact, it appears to mostly act against the interests of not only Aboriginal people but all Australians.
The Aboriginal industry is complex. The failed leadership group has maintained a tight grip on it for a long time and there is no evidence of tangible outcomes which the beneficiaries have generated and is not found in equivalent charitable organisations.
These inefficiencies have not been measured consistently and the amount of public funding received by the Aboriginal industry cannot be justified.
One problem is the fact there has been little accountability and the egg shell factor which the leadership has effectively hidden behind for decades.
We are continually pitted against each other which makes it easier for the failed aboriginal leadership to divide and conquer.
It is easier to control people if they are fighting each other, rather than working as a positive, united force focused on the causes of our discontent and disadvantage.
The growing divide between Aboriginal people and other Australians has been fed by vested interest groups, determined to control the billions of dollars governments allocate to Aboriginal communities.
Naturally, there is growing frustration and despair felt by Aboriginal people who have been preyed upon and manipulated, as they witness their communities flounder. My people are silenced.
Aboriginal people want to use their voices in a positive way however they do not know how to break through the significant barriers which have been created and controlled by the vested interest groups.
Sadly, the loudest voices feeding the divide, are those who do not truly represent my people. Imposters who claim to be of Aboriginal descent are agitating and creating trouble and disconnect as they continue to forge divisions.
During 2021, I watched several heart wrenching clips on Facebook of Aboriginal women in WA communities begging for police assistance. Women share with strangers they were abused as children and they want the cycle to end. One woman gave an emotional address while in hospital having kidney dialysis. I saw the pain in her face knowing her niece was alone in a dangerous situation.
The Australian Crime Commission Indigenous Intelligence Task Force 2007 to 2014 visited 145 Indigenous communities, 58 regional towns and held almost 2000 stakeholder meetings.
It found widespread abuse of power and connections with organised crime within the organisational web of Aboriginal Australia. Individuals in positions of authority have engaged in child abuse, violence, fraud and the distribution of alcohol and illicit substances.1
There is a problem with crime and corruption in Aboriginal communities and unfortunately it is left to the brave few to raise but no one is listening.
I am tired of uninformed people dominating us, insisting we have an issue with culture. The lack of integrity causes Aboriginal people to feel anger when they are framed as inviting dysfunction and/or enjoy it!
The leadership is drunk on power and its failure to acknowledge community people as valued human beings are beyond shameful.
Mark Koolmatrie, who describes himself as a Coorong aboriginal leader from the Lower Lakes, River Murray, and Sea to the South has said,
Australian Aboriginal people did not come out and actively support black lives matter. As their concerns do not relate to racism rather it is corruption.
Mark Koolmatrie, in a heartfelt open letter to the South Australian Government in July 2020, dismissed BLM claiming it is now the time:
Now is the hour when our indigenous communities calls on South Australian Marshall government— and other governments — to help lead us away from the corporation management system that has led to widespread corruption, incompetence and nepotism. You may ask: why is it important and how does it relate to BLM? Indigenous corporations throughout South Australia receive tens of millions of dollars annually through mining company payments under native title agreements or through grants for running health services and – ‘community’ organisations for what seems the creation and maintenance of family dynasties.2
The 1990s saw the CDEP and ATSIC create what appears to be pre-planned conflict. Riots broke out across Australia.
In Wilcannia, a man was killed
In Kempsey a man had his head kicked in and almost died
At Wallaga Lake, a mission in NSW, an elderly lady was hit by an iron bar, shots were fired and homes firebombed…Police failed to attend!
This has resulted in children missing school and failing to learn how to read and write. The unresolved conflict created a risk for families attending the schools and children became “at risk.” This saw families divided and many became homeless. This led to the social decay we see today.
I lived at Wallaga Lake, I witnessed it.
In 1996, Mr Sean Burke, a former coordinator of the Merrimans Aboriginal Land Council at Wallaga Lake, a small Aboriginal community on the far south coast of NSW, told the ICAC Commissioner, Mr Barry O'Keefe, QC,
The Wallaga Lake community was, like a war zone. In early 1996, after a dispute over control of ASTIC community development and employment programs. Burke said,
There were bashings and fire bombings’… ‘I was down there one night and someone was shooting all the windows out with guns.3
In 1999, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Commissioner Barry O’Keefe found Aboriginal land councils, including Wallaga Lake, were found to have acted corruptly:
…[G]reedy individuals were ripping off NSW Aboriginal land councils depriving many indigenous people of rightful compensation … The ALC system is meant to help Aboriginal people overcome the effects of more than 200 years' dispossession from their land, but the hopes of many indigenous Australians have not been met due to the actions of a few - most of whom are ripping off their own people … In many instances the power conferred on some by the system was abused; complaints were frequent, widespread, and in many cases justified … used land council funds for his own purposes, falsifying records to hide the purpose of the payments and in some instances obtaining double or triple payments of expenses … In addition, sham transactions were engineered to get cash, and secret commissions received from a local builder who was awarded contracts, some for exorbitant prices.4
Charles Perkins joined the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1973. By the beginning of 1974, he was the center of a political storm for saying that the Liberal and Country Parties were the biggest racist political parties in the world and the Labor Party ran a close second.
Aboriginal affairs has a long history of corruption. In 1978, Charles Perkins was the first appointed Assistant Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Secretary from 1984 to 1988.5
In 1980, Charles Perkins was appointed as Chairman of the Aboriginal Development Commission which was established to help Aboriginal people acquire land to engage in business and obtain housing finance.
In 1988 Prime Minister, Bob Hawke announced an audit of the Aboriginal Development Commission with a Senator Grant Tambling pursuing the allegations of misuse of position power. It was said there was a black mafia within the government in the Aboriginal affairs department.
A letter from the Administrative Clerical Office Association to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, claimed there had been abuse of travel expenses and improper payments to consultants by the department, misappropriation of funds of $100,000 to acquire a pub in New South Wales country town, then lending $80,000 to Mr Perkin’s daughter to buy a home in Sydney.
In response, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs accused the opposition of engaging in a witch hunt and taking a cheap shot which would have terrible repercussions in the country. Mr Perkins himself angrily rejected the allegations describing them pungently as bullshit.6
The minister refused a full inquiry into the allegations but the Orders reveal a disregard for the purpose which is corrupt.7
Aboriginal people remember it and believe people such as fake aborigine Roberta Sykes (will highlight later) was able to buy a restaurant at the exclusive Rocks in Sydney and a penthouse in Redfern. I was told by an elder who worked in the department, the fund was established to pillage. The Perkins family holds a substantial property portfolio as a result.
In 1988 Journalist Katheryn Rice wrote in The Australian Financial Review claiming that the occurrence of corruption is so common that it is a case of Deja Vu now uncovering the Charles Perkins corruption affair, with 21 years since a referendum that has given the Federal Government responsibility for Aboriginal affairs has seen in inefficiency, cronyism, and corruption. It appears this has continued and now in 2022 we are still in this here.8
The 1970s also saw the removal of police from Aboriginal communities - its defunding was against the wishes of the elders. They petitioned the Nurse’s Federation, and others, to reverse the policy decision by the Whitlam Government. The fight for the removal of police was led by Charles Perkins, but resulted in a number of issues in the Aboriginal communities, including:
Massive amounts of alcohol and drug coming in
Anglo-Activists leading a campaign of burning down churches
Kicking out of missionaries, who were there at the invitation of elders helping them to become self-sufficient
Outside Anglo activists, violent attacks on Aboriginal Christians resulted in them being kicked out in some cases. 9
The situation in Alice is by design. The NT police struggle to cope with servicing Aboriginal communities. Most police stations built in the 1990s are past their use by date. Police are on an awful shift system as a result. Making building relationships with locals impossible.
We need to fund police stations. Successive governments failed the NT. When I was on Tony Abbott’s, Indigenous Advisory Committee, NT Deputy Commissioner contacted me to say 5% of its budget was withheld by the Commonwealth. Making it impossible for them to provide the policing aboriginal communities deserve like every other community in Australia.
They've deliberately racialised criminal justice in Australia. They achieved this by defunding the policing of Aboriginal communities.
Today, these endless public debates are used as a device to justify the further encroachment of big government.
The madness must stop. It is time the failed leadership was made accountable for the harm it has inflicted upon Aboriginal people.
It is time to map community needs and apply the law equally and treat people with respect. No community can be successful without the rule of law.
The Aboriginal industrial complex is crime ridden.
There is so much corruption, an investigation is overdue. I call for charges to be laid against these individuals in the criminal justice system.
This is overdue considering the amount of money, and it is obvious that the failed leaders are corrupt traitors. This is the same failed leadership group that designed the Uluru Voice with the United Nations.
The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) was well placed to run a National Indigenous Intelligence Task Force (NIITF) 2007-2014, see report here: https://josephinecashman.com.au/references
Mark Koolmatrie, Too Many Are Feeding Off Our Native Title Bounty, The Australian, July 8, 2020
Micheal Evans, Community leader set poor example, The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Jun 1997
Geoff Failes, Land council workers corrupt - ICAC, Illawarra Mercury, 1 Jul 1999
For Charles Perkins CV, see https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-291812290/findingaid
Chris Sherwell, Corruption In Aboriginal Agency Alleged In Australia,Financial Times, 2 November 1988
The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, December 1990, Canberra https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=reports/1990/1990_pp423.pdf
Kathryn Bice, ‘Case Of Deja Vu In The Perkins Affair, The Australian Financial Review, 1988
See whistleblower Geoffrey McDonald's statement on Queensland Hansard, 1982, cited: https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/events/han/1982/1982_04_01.pdf
The information you are supplying here is both disturbing and very sad. This is just so wrong. Like so many other problems in Australia at the moment. Well Athos, I hope you find some other musketeers to help you in this battle. Bring on the criminal investigations.
Land Councils were supposed to be 'the voice' to state governments, representing traditional owners in each area. Looks obvious in hindsight, set up by politicians with maximum fanfare and minimal thought and effort.
No doubt Albanese's National Voice would have been constructed over the top of Land Councils, the easiest way to do it, and a proven system that works for politicians.
Land rights legislation and Land Councils are a continuing vehicle of enrichment for a chosen few, and whoever else then benefits from their patronage.
There is no progress until people who care, are prepared to do what it takes. Can only be done at a local level because it is impossible to address the needs of hundreds, if not 000s, of communities with a 'one size fits all' solution.
It only needs one nation or clan to start the ball rolling, negotiating with the non Aboriginal people living on their land for the best outcomes for all, including the use of land that might be subject to land rights claims, or otherwise owned by governments or private individuals.
Does not include peoples claiming sovereignty and attempting to enter treaties and agreements with foreign countries and corporations. They obviously need to be stopped, either foolish or corrupt, but definitely arrogant.