Laurie Bimson makes the same claim as his cousin Neil Evers; that his parents hid his Aboriginality as a child in order to keep him from being stolen.
Laurie distinguishes his story from that of Evers, by adding the confusing wrinkle that both his Father, an Uncle and an Aunty all told him he had ‘Aboriginal Blood.’
Bimson also claims his Father taught him to live off the land, and how to build Humpies, all while keeping their Aboriginality a closely guarded secret. So secret, that Bimson admits he thought all children grew up as he did, and was not aware of any distinction between himself and other children. Yet despite this inconsistent secrecy, Laurie Bimson did not identify as Aboriginal, or live as an Aboriginal Person until after living 57 years as a non-Aboriginal Person – far beyond any reasonable expectation that the adult Laurie Bimson may be stolen.
Soon after discovering their alleged Ancestry, these men were fooled by, or willingly took up with, non-Aboriginal charlatans, and were/are not Culturally equipped or familiar enough with actual, genuine Aboriginal People, Values, or Knowledge, to be able to see through the GuriNgai fiction.
Their long lives of White privilege did them a disservice, and left them wide open to be colonised by the GuriNgai Cult.
Laurie Bimson’s every action laid out in A Long Con, Gone On Too Long, demonstrate how far he is from grasping even the fundamental basics of what it means to be an Aboriginal Person.
The following is only a partial breakdown of Laurie Bimson’s interview with Meredith Lake, for the ABC’s Soul Search Radio Program.
Notice how Bimson welcomes his audience to HIS Country, before referring to it as ‘Guringai Country’. This interview took place in 2020, years after the release of the Aboriginal Heritage Office Report calling for the use of the word in that area to end. The report titled Filling a Void: A review of the historical context for the use of the word ‘Guringai.’ concludes with the following:
It is unfortunate that the term Guringai has become widely known in northern Sydney and it is understandable that people wish to use it as it is convenient to have a single word to cover the language, tribe/nation, identity and culture of a region.
However, it is based on a nineteenth century fiction and the AHO would argue that the use of the term Guringai or any of its various spellings such as Kuringgai is not warranted given its origin and previous use.
It is not authentic to the area, it was coined by a non-Aboriginal person and it gives a misleading impression of the connectivity of some original clan boundaries (p.40-41).
Even the founder of the GuriNgai cult himself, Mr Warren Whitfield, admits that the name Guringai should never have been applied (BY HIM) to the Northern Beaches, or Central Coast regions of NSW,
Bimson pays respect to HIS Ancestors, HIS Elders Past and Present, and pays his respect to all Aboriginal People, visiting and living in HIS Country. No respect is given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands Peoples that are not related (or at least believed to be related) to Bimson, nor is respect given to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands Peoples not visiting or living on what Bimson claims is HIS Country, unless they care for the land.
These things really matter, and Aboriginal People really notice, while non-Aboriginal People, unfamiliar with genuine Culture, Values, and Customs may overlook such details.
This insular, nationalism/tribalism at the expense of all others is completely alien to my understanding of Aboriginal Culture.
No Person, Clan, Country is an island, we respect each other, not just our family and friends. Yet Bimson demonstrates a contrary self-centered perspective that parallels that of Warren Whitfield, and his niece Tracey Howie, including but in no-way limited to the so-called Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation, with its notoriously self interested and racialized Rule Book that 49 people remain signatories to.
MY world, MY Country, MY People; all perspectives that begin with the self at the Centre, and all designation’s of ownership, of property rights.
Bimson tells us HIS Country goes from Lane Cove River up to Lake Macquarie, and that the Country is Garigal, the People are the Guringai, and the nation is Wannangine (which Bimson pronounces as Wan-an-guinea, rather than Wan-an-gine, like wine).
Bimson repeats the nonsense claim that Bungaree had 5 wives, before launching into misogyny that has no place in contemporary Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal Culture.
Needless to say Laurie Bimson is single.
The GuriNgai falsly claim Bungaree had 5 wives, yet cannot name then, cannot produce evidence of them, or any descendants existing, as they never did. Bungaree’s family are one of the most well researched and understood people from that time in Australian history, and the historical record, and more importantly our Family Knowledge passed down through generations both confirm that Bungaree had 2 wives.
Bungaree was not a provider in the gendered nonsense sense Bimson is proclaiming, and both his wives are as revered Ancestors to me as Bungaree, and were incredibly capable People in their own right.
Bimson claims that “in Aboriginal Culture nobody owns anything”, having himself already proclaimed ownership of the entire region and everything in it he deems worthy of his respect. He then contrasts his notion of Culture as distinct from that of non-Aboriginal People, by listing Woman among the items of Property that were not owned, but rather shared.
More red flags than a red flag factory if you know what to listen for.
Bimson teaches non-Aboriginal children that Aboriginal People are violent and hit children with clubs in order to teach them lessons, that Elders such as himself can be trusted on the same level as parents, that boys throw rocks at girls and hit them in the head, that overweight people are greedy and deserve to be beaten with Clubs; at least according to ‘Aboriginal Culture‘, courtesy of Laurie Bimson.
Bimson more than once refers to Bungaree as his great-great-grandfather, and claims Bungaree choose not to fight the invading Europeans.
He claims his ancestry was a closely guarded secret, and that he was told by his father, his uncle, and his Aunty on his Father’s side that he has “Aboriginal Blood”, but was kept quiet for fear of children being taken.
Bimson makes the unusual claim that a Sara (pronounced like Cara) Wallace is his great-great grandmother, that James was his great, great grandfather, and that Luis Ferdanando was a ‘German convict’ Bimson is related to as well.
Given that Bimson believes Bungaree is his great-great grandfather, does he believe Bungaree had a relationship with his daughter, Sarah?
Does Bimson not want to acknowledge that he has as much German Ancestry as Aboriginal?
Why is Sarah pronounced Sara, when none of our family pronounce it that way?
We know that sometime around 2005 Mr Bimson received a telephone call from a man name Bob Waterer, a distant(now deceased) cousin unknown to Bimson at that point. Bob relayed that he had discovered documents in the back of his deceased sisters closet that indicated Bob Waterer had distant Aboriginal Ancestry. This discovery made the local news in this sleepy part of the world.
Bob Waterer discovers parent’s birth certificates.
As detailed on the Manly Warringah Pittwater Aboriginal Support Group, Bob Waterer was 81 years old, when he discovered documents in his late sister’s house that showed his Aboriginal heritage. A book was soon to follow.
Bob Waterer phoned every cousin he could find to share to news of his discovery. Laurie Bimson and Neil Evers, both grandparents who had lived their entire lives as privileged non-Aboriginal people received phone calls from Bob Waterer, and were thus informed that they have an Aboriginal Ancestor they were completely unaware of.
With great enthusiasm Laurie Bimson and Neil Evers embraced their newly discovered ancestry, and began exploring who their Ancestors were, and just what it meant to ‘be Aboriginal.’ Unfortunately these grown Adult Men were so ignorant of genuine Aboriginal Values, Culture, Knowledge etc they fell easy prey to Tracey Howie and Warren Whitfield’s Guringai Cult, created only a handful of years earlier.
Gobbling down Whitfield’s pseudo-Aboriginal hodgepodge hook, line and sinker, these distant descendants of Aboriginal People were suddenly emboldened to pronounce themselves with vaguely Aboriginal adornments and titles, and to start dictating to others, including actual Aboriginal People, that they possessed Cultural Knowledge and standing in the Aboriginal Community.
Like many Cult members and zealots, Laurie Bimson may actually believe he is doing good, that he is making the world better for HIS PEOPLE, by ‘educating White People’, when the sad reality is Bimson, Evers and their cousin Bob Waterer, all bought the clear nonsense of a non-Aboriginal flimflam artist, and were/are too ignorant of genuine Culture to recognise the harm they are doing.
Everyone else is wrong, only the GuriNgai deserve anything, and filling their pockets based on lies and stolen Culture is a good thing, as long as it’s for the good of the GuriNgai Leadership.
Laurie Bimson is not teaching people about His Culture, he is repeating what other Mob have told him, filtered through a paradigm of relentless self-involvement and rights to property espoused by Tracey Howie and Warren Whitfield.
That these senior descendants at pivotal junctions in their lives suddenly jumped from one Culture to claiming another, without taking the time to truly grasp what that means, to learn and unlearn this land’s history, what our People have experienced post 1788, and continue to experience today. This lot are barely aware of the real Aboriginal People their families split from over 130 years ago, and who still exist today. Rather than sit, listen and learn, they wanted to lead from the front, to stand up and be seen as important, as relevant, as worthy successors to their newfound Ancestors Legacy.
But like similar substances, the GuriNgai Con both stinks, and is attracting fly’s.
Tracey Howie, Warren Whitfield and their families claim to be descendants of Bungaree through his fictional daughter ‘Sophy‘, believed to be the mother of Charlotte Ashby. The claim of descent from these ‘Webb Ashby descendants is false, as has been conclusively demonstrated elsewhere ad nauseum.
Bob Waterer, Neil Evers, and Laurie Bimson and their families claim descent from Bungaree through his actual daughter Sarah ‘Biddy’ Lewis (Lewis descendants). These people may shockingly be actual distant relatives of mine, that I was completely unaware of, as their families left ours and those of our River families many, many generations ago. They had no Aboriginal Culture, as their families did not share it with them, over at least 4 generations. Hence the ignorance of their Aboriginal Ancestry, and Aboriginal Values and Cultures both pre and post Bob Waterers find in the back of the cupboard. The same Cultural ignorance that made them easy prey for Warren Whitfield and Tracey Howie’s pseudo-Aboriginal Cult.
What may set these rubes apart from the Ashby descendant’s however, is that running through their clogged veins may actually be traces of Bungaree and Matora’s DNA. The same DNA that is conspicuously absent from Ashby descendant’s despite the wild claims of Whitfield and Howie. Either way, the DNA of the Lewis Line GuriNgai and the Ashby Line GuriNgai does not match, can not match, as the two lines do not share a recent common Ancestor, and they are only just now realising that this creates a problem for their long con.
Warren Whitfield is seeking to preemptively avoid this hiccup in his metafiction, and is now actively seeking to deny the Lewis descendants their Ancestors, by denying Sarah was related to Bungaree. He and Tracey Howie have minions do their work for them:
However both Bimson and Evers are so ensconced in the GuriNgai Cult they view Howie and Whitfield as profound sources of knowledge, and so fail to see what is happening right in front of them.
Bimson and Evers are literally, in every possible sense, none the wiser.
Despite spending so long ‘learning Culture’ to attempt pass off as their own.
Or perhaps it is less important to them than filling their pockets for attempting to be seen as anything more than what they appear to be?
Either way the result is the same, as is the damage and deep shame wrought.
A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. 
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