Hornsby Shire Council are the only Local Government in Australia to have made the choice to accept the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group’s claims to be representatives of Aboriginal People, and as having any Cultural Connection to the Sydney area.
Hornsby Shire Council have also included members of the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group on their internal Hornsby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Committee (HATSICC).
The non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group have influenced Hornsby Shire Council to such an extent that rate-payer funds have regularly been used in the commissioning of ahistorical monuments, recognising the fictional history put forth solely by the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group.
In 2018, Hornsby Shire Council (Council) decided to undertake what was described at the time as a “comprehensive heritage study of the Hornsby Shire Local Government Area (LGA), to inform amendments to planning controls that relate to heritage”.
Through Hornsby Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Consultative Committee (HATSICC), Tracey Howie and Laurie Bimson failed to declare their extensive prior history with Dr Michael Bennet and Coast History and Heritage, the firm recommended by the GuriNgai to conduct Hornsby Shire Council’s Aboriginal Heritage of the Hornsby Shire.
Since at least 2008, Dr Michael Bennet had a professional and personal relationship with both Laurie Bimson and Tracey Howie of the GuriNgai group, yet the minutes of HATSICC from the meeting in which Dr Michael Bennet and Coast History and Heritage are ‘introduced’ to Laurie Bimson and Tracy Howie specifically mentions that no conflict of interest was declared.
HATSICC stated at the time that one of the aims of the Aboriginal Heritage Study was ‘to clarify the position on the GuriNgai People’.
From that point, Coast History and Heritage, the company run by Dr Michael Bennett, proposed ways in which ‘Aboriginal members’ of the committee could be involved in the data verification process of a proposed definitive Aboriginal Heritage of the Hornsby Shire study.
The non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group were then granted complete access to the data of the proposed study, in spite of the GuriNgai not being Aboriginal, AND having multiple, concurrent conflicts of interest stemming from this initial fraud.
This Aboriginal Heritage of the Hornsby Shire, is what Hornsby Shire Council voted unanimously to ratify on 12 June 2024.
But what does any of this have to do with Westleigh Park, and the NSW State Government’s decision to reclaim $36 million in funding previously allocated to Hornsby Shire Council?
The GuriNgai group, using their network of companies, Hornsby Council boards and committees, and their undeclared prior business and personal relationships with archaeologist Dr Michael Bennett, non-Aboriginal Tracey Howie and her family, and non-Aboriginal Laurie Bimson and his family:
- Allowed a Scarred Tree to be killed.
- Were awarded contracts to conduct work they are not Culturally or legally qualified to do, on a close to, if not exclusive basis
In October/November 2023, my family and I mounted an information raising campaign to draw attention to the GuriNgai group’s apparent exclusive dealings with Hornsby Shire Council, and the harms that were resulting from GuriNgai involvement in the Westleigh Park Development.
I made the following submission to the Sydney North Planning Panel:
Ref: APPLICATION NO: DA/975/2023
To the Attention of the Sydney North Planning Panel,
I have concerns relating to the Development Application – Westleigh Park – Sporting Facility – Staged Construction – PAN-368184. My concerns are in relation to the Hornsby Council’s due diligence processes, and potential fraud and corruption within the Hornsby Council’s Hornsby Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Consultative Committee (HATSICC).
These concerns arise from the inclusion of confirmed, 100% non-Aboriginal People, merely fraudulently pretending to be Aboriginal.
These concerns go further, when we see in publicly available Council documentation, that this group failed to declare a longstanding business and personal relationship with one Dr Michael Bennet in their HATSICC Meeting dated 26 November, 2020, and subsequently. The results of this undeclared interest, include the loss of the opportunity to have an untainted “comprehensive heritage study of the Hornsby Shire Local Government Area (LGA), to inform amendments to planning controls that relate to heritage”.
What the GuriNgai involvement has resulted in is an unreliable heritage study, with data twice tainted by non-Aboriginal People: Tracey Howie and Laurie Bimson, having discretion over what can and can not be included; and the perpetuation of a false narrative first created by a non-Aboriginal man in 2001.
In addition, it appears that each step of the way, in this development process, companies owned and operated by Laurie Bimson, Tracey Howie and their families appear to have been the beneficiaries of many financial arrangements that appear to have resulted from their personal relationship with various members and staff within Hornsby Council.
These concerns were raised with Hornsby Council many times over the years. This year ICAC requests were filed, and I am aware that this group are currently being investigated by law enforcement.
For these reasons it would not be in the public interest for this development to continue; not on such unethical, immoral, and Culturally bankrupt foundations.
Thank you for your time,
Yours faithfully,
JD Cooke
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In addition to informing the Sydney North Planning Panel, I took the additional step of informing each of the Local, State and Federal Representatives with whom I had already been in contact regarding the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group, and informed them of the situation, the evidence that we had uncovered, and the Authorities to whom this information/complaints had been made.
It’s no secret that the GuriNgai have been an irritation to Authorities for the entirety of their twenty-one year existence as a group. However since the calls for Authorities to take action against the GuriNgai have become more difficult to ignore in recent years, multiple Local, State and Federal organisations have sought means to end this criminal blight, and my family and I presented these bodies with everything they needed to accomplish our mutual goals.
Then on Monday, 10 June, 2024, this happened:
The very project that we desperately sought the NSW Government to scrutinise and take action on, was scrutinised and action was taken.
Only two days later Hornsby Shire Council held their monthly public meeting. Non-Aboriginal man Laurie Bimson gave the GuriNgai version of a ‘Welcome to Country’, and the full Council voted unanimously to endorse the ahistorical document produced by, and for the GuriNgai group – at rate-payers expense.
Hornsby Shire Council believes the bureaucratic process has determined the definitive Aboriginal Heritage of the region they preside over, with the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai encouraging this bizarre reasoning.
The Aboriginal Community do not recognise the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai people as Aboriginal, as they are not, and this has been conclusively determined beyond any doubt. This is not new information, and was well known to Hornsby Shire Council prior to the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai convincing key figures withing Hornsby Shire Council otherwise.
The uncertainty within Hornsby Shire Council as to whether the GuriNgai group are genuinely Aboriginal People, or simply non-Aboriginal people engaging in an extremely elaborate game of pretend, was acknowledged briefly and inaccurately with the business papers of the most recent Hornsby Shire Council public meeting.
So while Hornsby Shire Council are aware the Aboriginal Community, individuals and organisations nationwide recognise the GuriNgai as non-Aboriginal, Hornsby Shire Council still voted unanimously to endorse the Aboriginal Heritage of the Hornsby Shire Report, created by and influenced throughout by the very people under dispute for falsly claiming to be Aboriginal.
These actions are as immoral as they are riddled with legal uncertainty, and carry an amount of financial, reputational, and election risk for any official conscious of such things.
But the insular Hornsby Shire Council continues to display shock and dismay when their very public actions are increasingly seen and recognised by everyday people both within the bounds of Hornsby Shire, but most importantly, everywhere else as well.
The GuriNgai are literally and figuratively cursed, a small group of less than 50 people, permanently beyond tarnished by the weight of their many crimes against Aboriginal People, Customs, Culture and existence. To engage with these known frauds commercially is a recipe for disaster which many have learned over the last 21 years – yet Hornsby Shire Council remains actively and deliberately determined that their rate-payers become the largest cohort of victims financially.
A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. 
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