At this new website, “Whoru.com.au”, we follow the ancestries of some prominent Australians who claim to be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.

But, are they really? Are these people really who they say they are?

And if they do have some long-past Aboriginal ancestry, are their family stories really that different to the rest of us?

Should they be entitled to a special place in modern Australia merely because of some distant ancestor who happened to be Aboriginal?

There are two main reasons why we started this website.

Firstly, we find something fundamentally wrong - unethical, immoral and perhaps even illegal(?) - for a person to claim to be an Aborigine or Torres Strait Islander, as defined by the Commonwealth’s commonly accepted and legally defined 3-part Rule for Aboriginality, when they know that they do not in fact have any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent.

These ‘fakes’ may brush off this requirement as being non-essential, or applicable in their own case, but their ‘fake’ claims greatly undermine the confidence us other Australians have in the institutions and governance that allows these ‘fakes’ to operate. For those ‘fakes’ that are simply mistaken are also complicit. It is encumbent on them to make certified genealogical enquiries to obtain teh documentation that supports their claim of Aboriginal descent.

Secondly, an further aim of this website is to bring to attention the rapid rise in the number of Australians newly identifying themselves as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.

Many of these people are either ‘fakes’ or mistaken, or of so distant descent that their claims of Aboriginality become meaningless.

In the past, these “new identifiers” would have been considered nothing more than somewhat eccentric or family history hobbyists. But in modern Australian, where $30billion per year is flowing through the Aboriginal Industry, and highly successful political, academic or media careers can be built by opportunists identifying as Aboriginal, the stakes for our society and the tax-payer are huge…and growing.

This website attempts to draw a line in the sand so as to slow and ultimately ‘Stop the Fakes.’

In the medium-term, we will continue to work with Aboriginal groups to publicly expose high profile ‘fakes’, or those mistaken about their Aboriginal identity. Many Aboriginal people are deeply disturbed when they see a ‘fake’ appropriating Aboriginal culture. Not only are these ‘fakes’ being highly disrespectful to Aboriginal people, they also promulgate false information about Aboriginal societies and culture or, to put more bluntly as some academics have done, the ‘fakes’ are simply promoting ‘psuedo-profound bullshit’ about Aboriginal Australia.

We have a number of Aboriginal individuals and groups who act as informants to our work.

Another aspect of this collaboration is to prevent tax-payer funds being syphoned off by people who are not entitled to them. This misallocation is greatly detrimental to those real Aboriginal people who are disadvantaged and do in fact need some assistance in improving their lives.

Longer-term Aim : To Re-direct Government Policy Direction Back Towards Assimilation

The assimilation of Aboriginal people into the mainstream of Australian life was a Liberal government policy developed and implemented for a short period of time, in the 1950s and 60s. These policies were developed by Paul Hasluck, the Liberal member for Curtin who was Minister for Territories at the time and by 1961 he succeeded in getting all mainland states to agree to a common policy of assimilation.

Hasluck maintained that the way forward was to see the 'Aboriginal problem' in 'social' rather than 'racial' terms. He held that the future for Indigenous Australians 'lay within the mainstream', and spoke of advancement as being provided by two great Australian principles: equality of opportunity and freedom from class rigidities, where 'men should stand on their own worth'.

Advancement would take place, according to this philosophy, when individuals provided with opportunity and encouragement made their way in white society and, in the process, left behind what he dismissed as the 'tattered threads of kinship'.

However, the assimilationist philosophy of Hasluck lost the political battle in Canberra with the ascendency of the more “socially progressive” ideas of former Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Herbert Cole 'Nugget' Coombs. Coombs was given the task of creating a Council for Aboriginal Affairs that would advise the federal government which he did over his long life of public service (he advised seven prime ministers in all).

With fellow councillors - diplomat and senior public servant Barrie Dexter, and professor of anthropology Bill Stanner - Coombs set out to consult with Aboriginal and Islander Australians, to learn of their ideas for the future and to present these ideas to government as persuasively as possible.

Nugget Coombs opened the 1968 Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) conference in Canberra, assuring those present that his Council would 'strengthen the sense of Aboriginal Australians as a distinctive group within our society, with a distinctive contribution to make to the quality of our national life'. This was at a time when the Liberal Country Party government was still espousing assimilation as its policy in Aboriginal affairs and did not favour such an outlook.

For the next 50 years Aboriginal affairs supported the notion that Aboriginal people were different and should be treated and respected as such economically, socially and politically. This entrenched the notion of “self-determination” and “separateness” for Aboriginal people which manifested itself in the Mabo native title decisions, the Voice referendum and the calls to establish Aboriginal treaties and “sovereignty.’

Australians can make up their own minds as to how successful this policy shift from assimilation to self-determination or separateness has been. Obvioulsy very may Australians (both Aboriginal and non-aboriginal0 have benefitted enormously, but clearlt that 20%

rest of his life Nugget Coombs would be involved as an advisor to governments and supporter of Indigenous organisations, whether they be land councils or business enterprises. He was highly regarded by both black and white Australians for the relentless support shown in his writings and speeches for the encouragement of autonomy and pride in identity of Indigenous Australians.

However, at this website we are avowed assimilationists with the long-term aim to ultimately end all ‘race-based welfare by 2030’.

We believe all welfare, rewards, employment and recognition for Australians should be solely based on one’s need and merit, not one’s race, ancestry or family connections.

We believe all Australians should be recognised, helped & rewarded for what they do, not who they are.

That is not to say that we don’t support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and their families being fully entitled to express themselves culturally and socially in any way they choose. We fully support them in this. However we believe that there is a generally accepted Australian set of standards - economic, cultural, social, religious and political - that all Australians must ultimately assimilate to if they are to be accepted and rewarded as Australian citizens.

This means that some traditional Aboriginal customs and behaviour must be curtailed or abandoned as being ‘not fit for purpose’ in a modern Australia of the 21st century.

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