Bungaree.org

Over the duration of my first degree I pursued my interests in science communication and journalism, while completing phenomenal classes in political strategy, campaigning, media management, and public relations.

While wanting to be a journalist I was drawn into the opportunity to pursue media management – public relations on behalf of clients. After close to a decade of self-employment, further study, and raising a magnificent young family, I discovered that a group of non-Aboriginal People calling themselves ‘the GuriNgai’ had been falsely portraying themselves as my kin for over 20 years.

I didn’t have a lot of resources at hand, but what I did have was enough to make a plan, to create a strategy to reveal to the world what was going on, why it was a problem, and what we can do about it.

I knew our oral history that was passed down to me, and I knew that my family had proven descent, proven ties, and even the DNA evidence to support what we had always known – and we certainly did not believe we were GuriNgai, or that any of the claims of these odd strangers were capable of holding water. But I know full well the vast chasm between what is true, and what can be proved.

I immediately set to work collecting and sorting as much data as possible.

I created alerts for key phrases, and combed the internet and open-source, publicly available documents relating to the GuriNgai, the people involved, and the various names and companies they have used over the last 2 decades. I placed these data points in a chronological order, and the truth became startlingly apparent – these GuriNgai were not Aboriginal, and were aware of this fact.

While I still had mostly conjecture, mostly circumstantial evidence; it was more than enough to present a counter-narrative to what had been presented by the GuriNgai to the public since 2003 – these people were not Aboriginal, they are non-Aboriginal People being influenced and controlled by a leadership that uses manipulation and controlling behaviours to manage the group. The GuriNgai meet the criteria for categorisation as a Cult, and that is what the evidence demonstrates that the GuriNgai actually are.

As more and more data and evidence arrived it only confirmed this hypothesis, and what was initially firmly held beliefs became proven facts with the receipt of DNA confirmation from 3 distinct lines of my family group compared with the DNA of members of the GuriNgai Cult, correspondence from Aboriginal People all over, and the anthropology report of Dr Natalie Kwok.

Armed with the GuriNgai Cult narrative (ie the truth), next came the matter of getting that narrative into the heart and minds of the Central Coast, the Northern Beaches, and Australia and the world at large?

Without funding, without cash-flow of any kind, what I next created was a network of like-minded mob and researchers who were already aware of the issue, already incentivised to help, and deadly enough to do so.

From the start of the Public Information campaign my approach was 3-fold:

1. Inform the public of what’s happening.
2. Educate the public about the harms caused, and to listen to mob when we say something is not right.
3. Give mob a point-of-contact regarding Aboriginal Identity Fraud, the GuriNgai in particular, and share tools and resources.

I’ve spent decades fighting to convince people to value truth, evidence, and reason, and know that it is rarely enough to simply have the truth.

So I used the education I have been privileged to have to develop a Public Relations and Campaign Strategy of informing and debunking simultaneously, across a multitude of media channels. This allowed me to amplify our reach, target specific populations, and maximise the time efficiency and cost effectiveness of the project.

Developing a strategy of using the ‘dark arts’ for public good, I aimed towards a health promotion, crisis management, and education themed approach to use spin and politics in order to incept the truth into public consciousness.

Our overarching principle was once the idea/story is in the public consciousness, it is difficult to erase, difficult to trace, and exists as long as the public’s memory – this is how the GuriNgai have been able to exist for 21 years without evidence.

It’s not enough for something to be true, it also has to be appealing, be understood, and be accessible.

How do we convince others of the truth?

How do we help others see the value of the truth?

How do we help others identify truths from falsehoods?

How do we get our message into public consciousness?

How do we make sure it sticks?

This is the core of bungaree.org – finding the truth, then getting that info to the right people at the right time, in the right ways, so that progress can be made, errors can be corrected, and mob can empower each other without outside interference.

From this principle came the various websites and social media channels we have used to store the narrative and accompanying evidence: bungaree.org, guringai.org.

We created and managed a Titktok account with hundreds of thousands of views of our content. Our Facebook page is thriving and we have regular high traffic across all platforms. This aspect of the project has been the most fulfilling and the most successful so far. We have not had to rely on bureaucratic processes, government intervention, or any of the mechanisms that we are told we can rely on, and while the wheels of justice begin turning, we are already ahead of that process.

The measurable outcomes of this project have been many, the results themselves nothing short of remarkable.

I strongly believe that this was only possible by following Cultural protocols, working with mob, and maintaining an ethical, legal framework that centred the true history of this place. By looking to the past, being aware of the present, and seeing what is on the horizon we have been able to correct a grave injustice, right a wrong that was 2 decades in the making, and help ensure our Ancestors and our stories are not stolen again.