A group of non-Aboriginal People began pretending to be us, stealing our stories, Ancestors, Culture and more on the Northern Beaches, Hornsby Shire, and Central Coast of NSW. This group are aided by other non-Aboriginal People, including Beverly Spiers, Jake Cassar, Lisa Bellamy, Sarah Blakeway, and Vicki Burke.
The story of how and why is ‘A Long Con Gone on Too Long’ which you can find at guriNgai.org where it has been publicly available since 2023. Today we will focus on Mr Jake Cassar of Jake Cassar Bushcraft, the Campfire Collective, Coasties Who Care, Save Kariong Sacred Lands, Save Kincumber Wetlands, and the author of ‘The Cave’.
Jake Cassar’s public profile on the Central Coast and in Northern Sydney has grown alongside a network of contested Aboriginal identity claims commonly described as the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai. Across the Northern Beaches, Hornsby Shire, and the Central Coast, this network has repeatedly asserted custodial authority in contexts where recognised Aboriginal landholding bodies and Elders have objected. Cassar’s role within this landscape is best understood not as a peripheral association, but as an enabling and mutually reinforcing relationship in which symbolic Aboriginal authority is amplified through his platforms, and then converted into political, reputational, and material benefit.
Cassar functions as a high-amplification organiser rather than a passive supporter. Through Coast Environmental Alliance, Save Kariong Sacred Lands, and associated social media campaign pages, he has repeatedly foregrounded individuals linked to the GuriNgai network as “Traditional Custodians” when opposing development proposals or mobilising community action (Guringai.org, 2025a; Guringai.org, 2025b). This framing matters because it reframes planning disputes and land use debates as moral struggles over cultural survival. Once a campaign is fronted by people presented as custodians, opposition can be characterised as culturally unsafe, colonial, or illegitimate, even when the relevant Aboriginal Land Councils or local Aboriginal organisations do not support the claim (Guringai.org, 2025c).
In practical terms, Cassar provides the infrastructure that allows these claims to circulate. His platforms offer audience reach, media-ready narratives, and an organising ecosystem capable of rapid mobilisation.
Rebranding across multiple campaign identities allows the same set of claims to appear as broad community consensus rather than a narrow group interest, while maintaining a consistent reliance on contested Aboriginal authority as a source of legitimacy (Guringai.org, 2025d). In this way, support is operational rather than symbolic. It is about distribution, amplification, and persistence.
The benefits flowing back to Cassar from this relationship are equally concrete. First, the presence of asserted custodianship dramatically strengthens persuasion power. Identity-based authority produces higher emotional engagement and sharper moral framing than conventional environmental objections, increasing the likelihood of media coverage, online virality, and public pressure on councils and agencies (Guringai.org, 2025b).
Second, this authority supports brand expansion. Cassar operates not only as an activist, but also as a commercial and reputational actor through bushcraft training, tourism-adjacent activities, and public speaking. Audience growth, follower counts, and supporter claims gain credibility when attached to narratives of protecting Aboriginal sacred lands, and that credibility can be converted into donations, customers, and influence (Guringai.org, 2025e).
There are also longer-term symbolic rewards. Public recognition, awards, and photographed proximity to people presented as custodians function as social proof. They signal moral legitimacy to institutions, sponsors, and media outlets, reinforcing Cassar’s status as a community leader rather than simply an activist entrepreneur. Investigations have linked this dynamic to a broader pattern of institutional laundering, where repeated exposure normalises contested identities through repetition rather than verification (Guringai.org, 2025a; Guringai.org, 2025f).
Local government language plays a critical role in sustaining this pattern. In Hornsby Shire, council materials have publicly referred to “Dharug and GuriNgai peoples” as Traditional Custodians in committee descriptions and corporate acknowledgements. Regardless of intent, such language creates an ambient sense of official recognition.
Once embedded in council webpages and documents, the term acquires screenshot-ready legitimacy that campaign actors can reuse as validation when presenting particular individuals as cultural authorities (Hornsby Shire Council, n.d.). This normalisation makes it easier for figures like Cassar to invoke GuriNgai authority without addressing long-standing objections from Aboriginal communities and scholars.
Taken together, the relationship between Jake Cassar and the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai network illustrates how borrowed Indigenous authority can circulate within settler activist ecosystems. Cassar amplifies contested custodial claims, those claims enhance the moral force and reach of his campaigns, and the resulting visibility feeds back into his profile, influence, and commercial viability. The harm identified by Aboriginal critics is not abstract. It lies in the displacement of genuine Aboriginal governance, the erosion of community-controlled identity processes, and the use of Indigeneity as a tool within political and economic projects that ultimately remain settler-controlled (Guringai.org, 2025c; Guringai.org, 2025f).
Understanding Cassar’s role in this way shifts the focus from individual belief to structural function. The issue is not whether he personally “believes” the GuriNgai narrative.
The issue is that his platforms have materially supported its endurance, and that he has demonstrably benefited from its circulation. That mutual reinforcement helps explain why contested identity claims persist long after they have been challenged, and why they continue to appear in environmental and community campaigns across the region.
Guringai.org. (2025a). Indigenous identity fraud and conspirituality on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Hornsby Shire, and the Central Coast of NSW. https://guringai.org/
Guringai.org. (2025b). Jake Cassar and Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA). https://guringai.org/
Guringai.org. (2025c). The “Saving Kariong Sacred Lands” campaign and the digital recolonisation of Aboriginal authority. https://guringai.org/
Guringai.org. (2025d). The false mirror: Settler environmentalism, identity fraud, and the undermining of Aboriginal sovereignty on the Central Coast. https://guringai.org/
Guringai.org. (2025e). The mysterious supporters of Jake Cassar’s campaigns. https://guringai.org/
Guringai.org. (2025f). Explaining the endurance of the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai. https://guringai.org/
Hornsby Shire Council. (n.d.). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consultative structures and acknowledgements. https://www.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/
Bungaree.org 
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