07/07/2023
This author makes available Guringai, GuriNgai, Wannangini, Walkaloa: A long con, gone on too long, on his website bungaree.org
With an hour the following comment was posted on bungaree.org by user
Ren h2othatsme@gmail.com No website 101.190.24.140
This was then followed up with the following comment by the same account:
This author believes ‘Ren’ is Renee Sales.
It wasn’t long before what was to be the first of many comments appeared, posted by the account Warren Whitfield, wj_whitfield@yahoo.com.au No website, 119.12.221.204
This was only the first of many, many, many rambling diatribes by members of this group this author has received in just the last 10 days.
Warren Whitfield claims that I “obviously” think I am Darkinjung.
I do not.
He goes to to wonder “perhaps you are obliged to the DLALC in some way.”
I am not.
Here, during a meltdown in which Mr Warren Whitfield appears most concerned that the public is now aware of his plagarism, he copy and pastes the same comment multiple times.
Before going on and on
and on
and on
and on in an explosive gish gallop;
and on;
and on;
and on;
and on;
and on;
and on, until Whitfield suddenly takes on the role of ringmaster/carnival barker, directing you, the audience of Bungaree.org, to read his comments:
Before continuing yet further on ad nauseum.
09/07/2023
While Warren Whitfield was publicly melting down, Tracey-Lee Howie took to a different, entirely predictable tactic.
Within hours of making public what I believe to be compelling evidence of widespread, prolonged, and very intentional Cultural theft and misrepresentation by a small insular group of people primarily based on the Northern Beaches, and Central Coast regions of NSW, Tracey-lee Howie left this comment:
Which was followed up on 10/07/2023 by this email, also from Tracey-lee Howie:
Unsurprisingly this deadline manufactured by Tracey-Lee Howie passed by like nothing had happened, as nothing had in fact happened; further validating this Author’s certainty that GuriNgai threats are as a empty as their claims.
“Howie said her people would first spot the passage of the whales from the ridge, and then perform daily ceremonies, moving to the ocean in the east and the bay in the west, and up the ridge into what is now the Bouddi National Park.
The Guringai people still hold a whale migration ceremony at the beginning, middle and end of the season: in May at Killcare Beach, in June at Copacabana, and later this month at North Entrance.”
This fable of the Guringai singing the Whale in three times a year is contradicted by Tracey Howie’s 2020 speech to Council:
In 2020 Tracey claimed her ‘people’ would call in the neighbors to eat the whales, rather than guide them with their magical songs:
On 16/07/2023 Rebecca Hird Fletcher, a family member/affiliate of the GuriNgai, left the following comment on the A long con, gone on to long Facebook page.
I responded with the following:
Hi Rebecca Hird Fletcher,
Your comment was more cogent then what WW seems capable of, so you get a response!
<JD you seem very intent on slandering GuriNgai mob and good people who were happy to welcome you.>
I am not slandering anyone. I am truth-telling and providing evidence. We clearly have a very different metric for measuring ‘good people.’ (I did not point out that Rebecca makes a clear distinction between those she considers ‘GuriNgai mob’, and people Rebecca considers ‘good people.’ Freudian slips happen to the best of us, and the rest of us).
<Why would you do that?>
Because unscrupulous people have claimed my Ancestors as their own, and brought shame by association to Genuine Aboriginal People. The intro to bungaree.org clearly spells this out.
<What do you have to gain?>
I do not want the atrocious behaviour of these people to continue to be associated with my genuine Aboriginal Ancestor, with whom you have no connection, familial or otherwise. I understand seeing someone undertake a project of this scale without a financial motivation must seem downright alien! (no pun intended).
<It seems you have a vendetta as we weren’t prepared to endorse Bungaree.org as representing GuriNgai or endorse you as a ‘Bungaree consultant’.>
I’m not sure it does seem that way Rebecca, and you know this to be false. I met with your family members twice over Zoom, conducted due diligence when a number of red flags appeared, and the resulting investigation is what is now publicly available on Bungaree.org
<You had just become known to us and only identified since 2020. That’s not a significant enough time to be considered an expert or promote yourself as a consultant on our family and cultural matters.>
As with most matters, your organisation is mistaking when you became aware of something, with when the rest of the world was aware. Thank you for acknowledging that time is a factor in establishing expertise; perhaps pass this along to your ‘Uncles’ and ‘Aunties’. If there was ever a perception that I wished to join your cabal, I respectfully decline your generous offer.
<There are a few questions that you could answer if you want to support your own claims of credibility->
My evidence stands and falls on its own merits, and clumsy attempts to discredit me are hardly the ploy of an innocent party, in my humble opinion.
<You’ve claimed you’re a lawyer, a public relations expert and an academic. What are your actual qualifications in these areas?>
Have I? I believe I would have claimed to have studied Law. I do not practice and have no desire to do so. My qualifications and most likely my CV are matters of public record and not hidden.
<What is your family line and direct bloodline link to Bungaree?>
How can you claim not to know this, yet also claim that I am a member of your Cult, and that I was welcomed in? Your inconsistency is showing a little Rebecca.
<As yet you haven’t responded to this question. >
This is our first dialogue, when could I have responded?
<I would think that an author who is intent on exposing others as frauds would make sure their own claimed lineage was transparent.>
You would be right. I am however not going to share more family information with you or the organisations you are tied up in, having seen and published the evidence of what could happen with it.
<What is your academic position? >
Why would I share further information with you?
Certainly not an identified position unlike many I know
<If you are teaching a a Uni it should come up on their website. Could you provide the link please?>
Yeah, as above.
<Where are your references or evidence base in your writing? An academic or journalist would provide referencing throughout their work.>
It is literally in the work, with big pictures and hyperlinks that you really have to try hard to miss.
<How has your writing been peer reviewed?>
Sorry Rebecca, the peer-review process does not apply to blog posts, just ask Warren Whitfield. Rest assured though my work is being examined by many peers as we speak!
<Again, academic and professional writing will have work peer reviewed so as to ensure that the content is factual and evidenced.>
Thank you for explaining peer review for the class Rebecca. Notice how the other kids didn’t immediately demand a CV before considering your statement.
<I can’t see your attacks on GuriNgai mob boding well for you JD.>
Thank you for your insight/threat, Rebecca. As wise and thought provoking as ever.
<When you put out such intentional slander to hurt good people the ancestors do not smile.>
When I tell truth to correct the fraud perpetuated by hucksters claiming my Ancestors as their own; my Ancestors absolutely love it! Again, we simply have a very different metric for measuring ‘good people.’
I hope one day you’re able to locate and make peace with your own actual Ancestors and stop heaping shame on mine.
Yanu.
RMIT Vice Chancellor’s Indigenous Pre-doctoral Research Fellow Rebecca Hird Fletcher is one of three Administrators of ‘Family of Bungaree’ Facebook Group, alongside University of Queensland Director Indigenous Business Hub (Acting) & Senior Lecturer in the School of Business, Dr Sharlene Leroy Dwyer and
Mr Laurie Bimson.
Needless to say my access to this page has been curtailed of late.
It seems as if Ms Hird Fletcher may have been under the mistaken impression that she was a descendant of Bungaree and Matora, like many on the so-called Ashby/Smith/Webb line. Rather than raise this with her groups Leadership, Ms Hird Fletcher insists on pestering me about her families false claims.
Rebecca usually positions herself as a mediator in the many disputes various GuriNgai have with Aboriginal People.:
When not snooping around my Linkedin profile:
Rebecca enjoys posting on Facebook about her experiences with what she has been led to believe is ‘Culture.’
It’s unclear if Ms Hird Fletcher was aware of the evidence compiled within A Long Con Gone On Too Long prior to publication. As such I can’t be sure if Ms Hird Fletcher had previously seen Dr Natali Kwok’s Anthropological evidence, if Tracey-Lee Howie did not disclose this information to her supposed ‘tribe.’
Ms Hird Fletcher may well have simply accepted the bogus claims of people she trusted, believing they were friends and even family members. Whatever the case, I hope Rebecca one day finds her actual Ancestors, and can live a fulfilled life without the crutch of Warren Whitfield’s racist fiction.
17/07/2023
Warren Whitfield continued to post voluminously around everything but the lack of evidence connecting his fictional ‘Sophy’ to my ancestors Bungaree and Matora.
Another account writing as Tracey Howie begins to make use of the comments section of bungaree.org. Tracey admin@guringai.com.au No website 125.209.135.101
This account, believed to be used by Tracey-Lee Howie is a goldmine.
Now Warren Whitfield and Tracey Howie are both commenting, often contradictory accounts, in real time, with a very captivated audience loving every minute of it.
Before deteriorating into unintelligible nonsense,
I had been harboring concerns there was “one on there just for me.”
To discover that this is ‘now’ is nothing short of a revelation.
“Let’s get there”…where? Real? Is that a place name?
It seems truth out there shall we!! is either a GuriNgai catchphrase, a call-to-arms, or little more than a garbled misuse of the a poorly understood language – English. What hope then for the confused lexicon of the GuriNgai.
Before soon resorting to threats, a very common tactic of this group.
Then returning to claiming I am now suddenly a member of their Cult.
It’s dizzying stuff.
Meanwhile Warren Whitfield gives us an unasked for glimpse into his ‘social circle.”
Yes, psychologist ‘friend.’
Meanwhile Tracey-Lee changes gears, letting lose her whole damned mind in the process:
The fine print at the bottom is Tracey-Lee’s excuse for not pursuing legal action against this Author (an empty threat made only days earlier) for pulling back the curtain on this hill-people circus black-cladding as Aboriginal People.
Curiously her confused understanding of Bungaree’s genuine genealogy precludes Bob Waterer, Neil Evers, and Laurie Bimson, and possibly even Dr Sharlene Leroy-Dyer, and Bradley Tywnham of their claimed descent from Bungaree.
the_blood_of_bangaree_book-2Download
Curiouser and curiouser, right up to the end.
The above is a clear rejection of the GuriNgai, by this Author, on January 18, 2023, 4:25 PM.
You’ll notice it was received and witnessed by the administrators of the ‘‘Family of Bungaree’ Facebook Page: Rebecca Hird Fletcher, Laurie Bimson, and Sharlene Leroy-Dyer.
The same Rebecca Hird Fletcher who days ago claimed to not know who I was, claimed to not know why I was engaged in this truth-telling, and issued the following threat:
“I can’t see your attacks on GuriNgai mob boding well for you JD.“
Which is less direct than the threats received by my elderly Aboriginal Family members in April this year.
02/08/2023
On 02/08/2023 Rebecca Hird Fletcher posted the following to me, on a Darug Facebook page, that I as a Darug man belong to.
I replied:
and;
It seems the embargo from contacting me that Tracey Howie demanded of her followers has expired.
Or perhaps her ‘authority’ over her minions is starting to dissipate like a morning fog…
Whichever the case, Rebecca, Tracey and Warren were not the only so-called Guringai to get in contact.
17/08/2023
At approximately 5.07PM on Friday the 17th of August, 2023 I received a phone call on my mobile from 0438 877 509. I didn’t recognise the number, but answered anyway. My hello was met with “It’s Laurie Bimson, your cousin.” I was suprised to hear from Laurie, but he asked me about what Warren Whitfield was claiming on bungaree.org, and I explained some of the nonsense Whitfield had recreantly concocted. Then the conversation turned on a dime, with Laurie saying that because of what I had done, he had people there to kill me. I rushed to my computer and was able to record the rest of the conversation, which can be found here:
Not content to steal from us, these colonisers intend to finish the job, in 2023.
So-called Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation updated their Member List for the second time in as many months. Despite claiming to speak for thousands, their membership has fallen to 49 people. For those wondering, of course they still have poor Mrs Elva Redmond listed twice.
Within days of threatening supposed family members, Laurie Bimson is still operating in Schools, passing himself off as an Aboriginal man, an Uncle, and an Elder; for money.
“Offensive”- Voice supporter accused of faking Aboriginal heritage
Neil Evers is again called out for claiming to be Aboriginal, claiming to be an Uncle, claiming to be an Elder, and claiming to speak on behalf of Aboriginal People.
Meanwhile the befuddled Bradley Tywnham, who moments ago was a ‘Bloodline Custodian of the Central Coast, and a ‘Direct Descendant’ of Bungaree has started following up on Warren Whitfield’s claims with a little detective work of his own, bringing all of his Cultural Knowledge to the task of posting in yet another Facebook Page, this one titled Aboriginal Genealogy NSW.
Bradley appears to be attempting to follow the breadcrumbs of Warren Whitfield’s most recent outlandish claims, and is doing so with all the savvy we have come to expect from these people.
25/08/2023
I had been curious why Neil Evers was appearing at events run in aid of the YES campaign for Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal People, when his pseudo-Aboriginal ‘tribe’ are fiercely advocating for the NO side. Now it makes more sense:
“In presenting an event that focused on the case for voting Yes, Chair of ASGMWP Uncle Neil Evers (image above) opened the evening with an impassioned plea to all in attendance to listen with respect to the other side of the debate.“
Esteemed Anthropologist Dr Natalie Kwok investigates and debunks Warren Whitfield and Tracey Howie’s historical fiction once and for all. I was particulary struck by the following line:
“There seems to be no evidence to substantiate claims made that Sophy was the daughter of Bungaree, nor any account of how this came to be known.”
I’m confident A Long Con Gone on Too Long provides the answer to this question.
We finally get to see Guringai Elder, or is it Garigal Elder, Uncle Neil Evers contribution to the Voice Referendum discussion, on behalf of ‘his people.’
19/09/2023
Frivolous and prima facie vexatious threats of litigation continue to be made by Senior Members of GuriNgai affiliated endeavors. The latest example comes from husband of Tracey-Lee Howie, and father of Kyle Howie, Warren John Howie.
Howie claims that suddenly eight years on from the Aboriginal Heritage Office publication of the Filling a Void Report, suddenly Howie’s ‘People’ find the research and conclusions within offensive.
Clearly this is just another example of this GuriNgai group attempting to bully Aboriginal People and Organisations into accepting their patently false claims in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Local Garigal man and Aboriginal Support Group — Manly, Warringah and Pittwater (ASGMWP) Chair Uncle Neil Evers (image below), who recently hosted a public forum on the Voice, conducted the Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony. He was supported by Matt James on didgeridoo and the event was moderated by former ABC senior journalist Anne Maria Nicholson.
Laurie Bimson can’t seem to make up his mind, switching from Guringai man, to GuriNgai Man, to Dharog Custodian, to now claiming to be a Garigal man.
27/09/2023
October 2023
Forever chasing the spotlight like lost moth, Neil Evers is on a Public Relations campaign; unusual behavior for someone putting such effort into presenting the image of a community minded, octogenarian volunteer.
This time around it’s a profile in the Life Stories Section of a local Pittwater free press, Pittwater Life, with an estimated readership of 35,000 unsuspecting souls.
Curiously this paper was founded in 1991, making it a full decade older that the pseudo-Aboriginal group Neil Evers belongs to.
Neil claims here that Laurie and Tony Bimson visited his home in 2005, and told him of Bob Waterer and Bob’s ‘discovery.’
So much to unpack already here.
Lets start with ‘all of a sudden you’re Aboriginal.’
No.
No Person is ever, has ever, or will ever suddenly become Aboriginal.
This is not even close to a thing, and exemplifies the problem it illustrates perfectly.
What Neil Evers and his silly cousins expect us to believe they fail to grasp, even after all this time, is that their ‘discovery’ of a single Aboriginal Ancestor is simply that, and does no more make them Aboriginal that the simultaneous discovery of their German Ancestor.
Yet these men do not claim to be German, do not play as pretending to be their misguided, uneducated, and deeply problematic approximation of German Culture from 235 years past.
Why would they?
No, they instead deliberately and consciously amplify their perceived connection to a single Aboriginal Person, in order to amplify their voices, to platform themselves, and to benefit financially from it, every, single day.
As previously mentioned, to legally be accepted as Aboriginal, descent from a single Ancestor is far from sufficient.
It is a necessary component, but falls short of being the complete package. Often shamefully so.
The three part test accepted by the Courts and Government of Australia contains the following three elements.
- Descent from an Aboriginal Person/Persons.
- Self-identification as an Aboriginal Person.
- Acceptance by the Community as an Aboriginal Person.
Only by satisfying all three of these elements, can a person legally be considered an Aboriginal Person.
It is an all to common experience for people raised with ostensibly White European values, on discovering possible distant ancestry, to engage in the same colonizing behaviors of the non-Aboriginal Settler Ancestors they repeatedly fail to mention.
We are all raised in a culture, and as such take it for granted. The length of time we spend in that culture, that immersion, is not a conscious choice, rather part of the joy of human experience.
To jump from one culture to another culture is a process that can not be rushed, if it can happen at all. There is an incredible amount of unlearning, of decolonizing, letting go of prejudices, mistaken beliefs, not just about who you are, but about your family, your community, your history and your Nation.
Aboriginal history did not pause from 1788 until Neil Evers and his family came along.
We again find that Neil Evers and Laurie Bimson’s claim to Aboriginal descent is solely through a connection to a single Aboriginal Ancestor, Sarah ‘Biddy’ Lewis.
Neil claims this time he was 63 years old when the ‘discovery’ was made, contrasting his 2018 claim that he found out about his Ancestry in 2009, while aged 67.
Back in 2018, Mr Evers described himself as a ‘fifth generation Aboriginal’; apparent obfuscation of the reality that both he and his cousins had but a single Aboriginal Ancestor, ‘forgotten’ by these families for generation after generation, after generation.
Oh yeah, in 2018 Mr Evers also claimed his group “had no elders.”
Yet only 5 years later, Mr Evers is now expressing how fortunate he was to have Elders who have guided him. Curious hey…
He fails to mention that one of the so-called GuriNgai elders was none other than non-Aboriginal man Warren Whitfield (who created the GuriNgai fiction as recently as 2001), and his non-Aboriginal niece Tracey-Lee Howie.
We know that Mr Warren Whitfield only registered Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation in 2003, only 2 years on from his 2001 interview with Rosemary Block in which Mr Whitfield admits to cobbling together his pseudo-Aboriginal narrative using a variety of non-Aboriginal academic’s work, and that even in 2001, all the ‘Elders’ were “all are dead now—long dead.”
Returning to Neil Evers, we see in his own words that he and his cousins ‘discovered’ possible Ancestry when in their Senior Years, and then assumed or were told by Whitfield and Howie, this instantly made them Aboriginal.
Then these people of recently discovered Aboriginal descent believed they were Guringai, despite displaying no certainty if the term applied to their language, their clan, their tribe, or their fictional nation.
These men either took up with a fraudulent operation, or were not educated enough in either Culture to see what is readily apparent; Mr Whitfield and his niece are not Aboriginal, and had only started their operation on the Central Coast a handful of years prior.
Having satisfied the first two elements of the three part test, these new identifiers went for the trifecta by seeking acceptance by the Community as an Aboriginal Person.
They were not accepted by the Aboriginal Community.
They remain, not accepted by the Aboriginal Community.
Reasons for this rejection possibly include the stark fact the ‘tribe’ they claim Ancestral Connection to does not exist.
Or that they appropriated the name of another Group as it was convenient to them.
Or that the founders of the group and many of it’s members are not Culturally, legally, even genetically Aboriginal.
What these add up to is the GuriNgai / Guringai / Garigal / Wannagine / Wannungine / Wannabe of the Northern Beaches of Sydney and Central Coast of NSW are not, and never have been, accepted as Aboriginal, by the Aboriginal Community.
The non-Aboriginal Community on the other hand has had all sorts of financial arrangements with this group, which have been documented elsewhere, and will continue to be documented as new information comes to light – hourly it seems.
Mr Evers thought his grandmother had a really good suntan, because his Grandmother did not identify as an Aboriginal Person, and Neil Evers had no reason to believe anything different.
His Grandmother was not Aboriginal, like Mr Evers, she was a Person of Aboriginal descent. Unlike Mr Evers, at least she could tan.
Mr Neil Evers 4 sons from 3 wives all presumably believe as he does, that they are Aboriginal. This is how this problem spreads in such a short time. From Neil Evers interaction with Laurie Bimson in the mid-to-late 2000’s, this notion that they are suddenly Aboriginal has infected Neil, his current wife Sue, and Evers 4 adult children, 8 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren. One Neil Evers can become 14 Evers with the same indoctrination, in under 2 decades.
Keeping in mind, this is only the Evers, not the Bimsons, the Howies, the Whitfields etc.
No.
If Neal Evers wanted to help people learn about us, about our lives, our history, our Culture; we would not ever have to see or hear, or know of Neal Evers. Instead we are bombarded with Neal Evers, talking about Neil Evers.
Why though? Mr Evers valiantly attempts to persuade the audience of Pittwater Life that he was expected to take on roles and responsibilities that were never his. This was of course never the case.
The reality is people accepted Mr Neil Evers claims that he was Aboriginal, because he made the claims, repeatedly, in public forums, in order for people to believe he was Aboriginal.
Not only did Mr Evers parents not identify as Aboriginal, they were frightened of Aboriginal People.
Gobbling down Whitfield’s pseudo-Aboriginal hodgepodge hook, line and sinker, these distant possible 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 had Cultural Knowledge and standing in the Aboriginal Community.
That’s why these quite clearly non-Aboriginal people claim to be Elders, Uncles, Aunties, Bloodline Custodians etc.
They were fooled by non-Aboriginal charlatans, and were/are not Culturally equipped to see through the fiction, despite their long lives of White privilege.
The great irony is that there are Aboriginal descendants of Bungaree and Matora.
We were not tricked into joining the GuriNgai scam, as we already know who and what we are, already have language, Culture, Stories, know where we came from, and where we are going.
We recognised Tracey Howie and Warren Whitfield for what they are on sight, and remain saddened and disappointed that some of our distant non-Aboriginal relatives can not.
Still I spent considerable time and expense unravelling this bizarre mess to uncover just what was going on.
I remain steadfast in my view that had Evers and Bimson any Cultural understanding whatsoever, they would not have, could not have, been so easily hoodwinked by the claims of non-Aboriginal People such as Warren Whitfield and Tracey Howie.
Neil Evers and Laurie Bimson’s every action laid out in A Long Con, Gone On Too Long, demonstrate how far they are from grasping even the fundamental basics of what it means to be an Aboriginal Person.
How they continue to recklessly disregard the great shame they are causing their families, even their very distant Aboriginal Family, their communities and all Australia, remains beyond me.
Frankly it’s beyond all mob, and we’re well and truly fed up.
07/10/2023
The following message was sent to a mobile phone the GuriNgai believe belongs to this Author.
Following Tracey Howie’s presentation, which was filmed by the GuriNgai, but the footage curiously not released for public consumption, I began to receive correspondence from Kyle Howie (son of Tracey-Lee Howie), Tania Craig (sister of Paul Craig) and Kirsten Apps (daughter of Colleen Fuller).
14/10/2023
“Of course Neil Evers, as local descendant of Indigenous peoples in what is now called Pittwater has explained, we cannot rename or have access to the meaning of the language spoken here and its meanings and knowledge as that is mostly lost – we have the word Barrenjoey, meaning little kangaroo, petroglyphs marking scared places and songlines through our area, but little else has survived.”
19/10/2023
Mr Laurie Bimson began the day misleading children:
Before stumbling through the same pantomime, to an easily amused room of apparent adults.
Laurie Bimson is still making his way into schools, passing himself off as Aboriginal, and as someone Culturally safe.
https://www.moretondaily.com.au/news/new-sculpture-honours-aboriginal-explorer
Truth-telling from a neurodiverse perspective. 
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