This article exposes how the non-Aboriginal “GuriNgai” group has engaged in a sustained campaign of Indigenous identity fraud across northern Sydney, Hornsby Shire, and the Central Coast of New South Wales. Despite having no genealogical or community recognition, members of this group have asserted false custodianship over Country, misrepresented cultural authority, and displaced legitimate Aboriginal voices.
The origins of the “GuriNgai” label trace to colonial revisionism by John Fraser in 1892, who invented the term “Kuringgai” without any traditional linguistic or cultural foundation (Troy, 1993). This fabrication was later revived by Norman Tindale and wrongly applied to Sydney-region Aboriginal groups. The term has no historical connection to Country south of the Hunter River, yet the GuriNgai group has rebranded this falsehood into a tool for institutional access and public visibility (Lissarrague & Syron, 2024).
The article characterises this phenomenon as a form of neocolonial violence: a reassertion of settler control over Aboriginal identity through strategic fraud, institutional complicity, and the aesthetics of Indigeneity. Drawing from Moreton-Robinson’s (2015) concept of “white possession,” it is argued that settler Australians increasingly claim Aboriginality as a form of epistemological property—using bureaucratic frameworks and spiritual language to legitimise their deception.
The GuriNgai group’s persistence is explained through the lens of “settler conspirituality” (Day & Carlson, 2023): a fusion of far-right paranoia, New Age mysticism, and environmental activism that reimagines Aboriginal identity as a spiritual entitlement rather than a kinship- and Law-based reality. Public figures like Jake Cassar exemplify this blend of bushcraft, faux-ceremony, and conspiracist performance. These actions mimic the “Pretendian” trend seen in Canada and the United States, where settlers fabricate Indigeneity to access symbolic and material capital (Teillet, 2021; Watt & Kowal, 2019).
Institutional failures are central to this fraud. The three-part legal definition of Aboriginal identity—descent, self-identification, and community recognition—is routinely misapplied, often relying on self-identification alone. A 2013 Native Title claim filed by the GuriNgai group was rejected for lack of evidence (Courtman, 2020), yet the same individuals later attempted to lodge an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with no community endorsement. In 2020, seven Local Aboriginal Land Councils issued a joint letter denouncing the group as having no legitimate cultural connection to the region (MLALC, 2020).
The article warns that such fraud causes profound cultural, legal, and intergenerational harm. It erodes cultural protocols, compromises Native Title processes, misdirects public funds, and distorts historical knowledge in schools and museums. Children are falsely taught that “Guringai” people are the traditional custodians of the Northern Beaches, while actual clans such as the Carigal and Marramarra are erased (GuriNgai.org, 2025; Bungaree.org, 2025). Fraudulent claimants benefit from grants and consultancy roles meant for Aboriginal people, reducing identity to a commodity, and replacing cultural integrity with branding (Maddison, 2010).
These actions violate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), particularly Articles 8 and 33, which affirm Indigenous peoples’ rights to cultural continuity and self-determined identity. The GuriNgai simulation undermines these rights and reproduces settler domination through performance and institutional acceptance.
The article concludes with calls for resistance and reform. Community-led platforms such as guriNgai.org and bungaree.org are crucial tools for truth-telling. Policy change must include Aboriginal-led identity verification, legislative penalties for identity fraud, and removal of colonial terminology from educational and public discourse. Cultural governance must be restored to those with real lineage, not settlers impersonating it.
Ultimately, the GuriNgai fraud is not an isolated incident, but part of a larger settler project to reoccupy Aboriginal space, identity, and legitimacy. This masquerade, if left unchallenged, risks repeating the dispossession it falsely claims to heal.
Bungaree.org 
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