On September 14, 2024, Central Coast residents voted in their new Local Council. This Election was the first for the region since the former Council was suspended on 30 October 2020 pending a formal Public Inquiry, then dissolved on 17 March 2022, when Minister for Local Government, the Hon Wendy Tuckerman took action to terminate all suspended Councillors.
Voting is compulsory at all NSW local government elections.
Among the candidates vying for the 3 Council positions in the West Gosford Ward were yet another iteration of the GuriNgai affiliated ‘Save Kariong group’, this time rebranding themselves as ‘Coasties Who Care’.
Jake Cassar boasts of being the founder and organiser of this group of three local Woman.
Mr Cassar is presumably unable to run himself due to failing the ‘fit and proper person test’, potentially due to assaulting someone in a Nightclub while previously running as a NSW State Government Candidate, and or as a consequence of behaviour since.
Through his business ‘Jake Cassar Bushcraft’ and community group, Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA), Jake Cassar has relentlessly encouraged members of the Central Coast community to accept the narrative he and his friends constructed out of nothing, for personal gain. Examples of this pervasive false narrative include:
- The non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group are ‘traditional bloodline custodians’ of the Central Coast.
- Non-Aboriginal woman Tracey Howie is Aboriginal, an Elder, respected in the Community.
- Jake Cassar is responsible for the Bulgandy Sacred Aboriginal Place being protected.
- Jake Cassar ‘saved Bambara’, and ‘saved Kariong Sacred Lands.
- Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC) are somehow not legitimate.
- That DLALC are a development company.
- That DLALC do not represent the Aboriginal Community of the Central Coast region.
- That non-Aboriginal People such as the GuriNgai, and former Goolabeen protege Colleen Fuller represent the ‘true’ Custodians of the Central Coast.
- That non-Aboriginal People attempting to involve themselves in Aboriginal business is appropriate and justified, because other Aboriginal People provide permission to do so.
These false narratives provide Jake Cassar, the GuriNgai, Colleen Fuller, the CEA, Community Voice Australia Central Coast, Coast Community News, My Place Central Coast, One Nation Central Coast, and many, many other otherwise progressive people and organisations ‘permission’ to engage is blatant racist attacks against legitimate Aboriginal People and organisations; effectively weaponizing hippies against mob.
Jake Cassar was able to entice Kariong resident Lisa Bellamy into running in his place, using Jake Cassar’s scripted talking points, and using Jake Cassar’s friends Tracey Howie and the GuriNgai as black-cladding. This despite Tracey Howie and the GuriNgai being both non-Aboriginal, and as authentic to the Central Coast region as a hotdog.
Lisa Bellamy first involved herself with the Indigenous Aboriginal Party as their ‘NSW Coordinator’, despite being neither Indigenous or Aboriginal. Allegedly Bellamy was relieved of that position after using Party resources without permission.
Lisa Bellamy and Jake Cassar have a longstanding relationship with Kate Mason, an anti-renewables, anti-vaccination, anti-mental health advocate and conspiracy theorist within far-right internet circles.
Jake Cassar was told the story of the wishing tree at Kariong in the early 2000’s by non-Aboriginal grifter and raconteur Beve Spiers, aka Goolabeen.
Goolabeen is the source of the ‘Grandmother tree’ fable, and conducted an inauthentic ‘ceremony’ within Brisbane Water National Park, from which non-Aboriginal pseudo archaeologist Steven Strong, and Greek refugee Nina Angelo formed the belief that they were now ‘Original People’ with magical powers, and certain rights and responsibilities towards the wishing/Grandmother Tree.
Vicki Burke is another non-Aboriginal victim of Goolabeen, and claims to also represent ‘Original People’ through her connection to extra terrestrials that communicate to her through Goolabeen’s wishing tree in Brisbane Waters National Park, Kariong.
In 2020 Steven Strong and others held another inauthentic ‘ceremony’, this time at Uluru. They claim to have activated the ‘ley lines’ of our Country, then the whole world.
An attendee of this event was Sarah Blakeway, who on returning to the Central Coast, connected with Kate Mason, Jake Cassar and Lisa Bellamy.
Fast forward to the present, we find Sarah Blakeway is the second of 3 candidates running as Coasties Who Care. Sarah Blakeway is very open about her beliefs that a ‘globalist agenda’ is threatening to destroy the world, is anti-renewable energy, anti-vaccines, and anti intellectual to the point of absurdity.
The third candidate running with Coasties Who Care is Teegan Mulqueeny, who made the mistake of attending one of Jake Cassar’s ‘Bushcraft’ weekend courses recently, and was swiftly convinced by the conservation rhetoric of both Bellamy and Cassar.
Residents of the wider Central Coast are increasingly aware that these people claiming to be conservationists are exclusively seeking to conserve the tiny portions of land owned and controlled by genuine Aboriginal People and Organisations.
Having recently failed to hijack the 5 Lands Walk Community event, the same people became ‘Coasties Who Care’, while also representing ‘Saving Kariong Sacred Lands’ and a dozen other interest groups, all made up of the same handful of people.
This group regularly hold protest events around the Central Coast, which are less attended each time, and are exclusively against the Local Aboriginal Land Council.
While they receive less and less actual support from the actual community, this group rely on their allies in the local press (Coast Community News, Jacquie Pearson) to grossly exaggerate their attendance numbers, while presenting inaccurate reporting of the issue.
NBN News recently fell victim to blindly accepting the word of Jake Cassar and the GuriNgai, and were somehow compelled to run a free election campaign add during their ‘news’ segment.
On Friday 17 August 2024, Jake Cassar and his Coasties Who Care ran a fundraising event at the Settler Tavern Gosford. Jake Cassar was the MC, the entertainment, and introduced his candidates to an audience of approximately 25 adults, many of whom were not local to the area.
Their evening of frivolity apparently earned them close to $1000 from their ‘fundraising’. During the event we heard the following from Jake Cassar and Lisa Bellamy:
The following from Sarah Blakeway:
We were told the group plans to spend the next few weeks attempting to compel other candidates and parties to align with their objectively offensive cause, and plan to hold their next public event as a town hall meeting at the Kariong Scout Hall.
This event on Friday 26 August 2024 will feature Tracey Howie of the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai group attempting to once again defy history, science and Culture to claim their bizarre non-Aboriginal Cult are the Custodians of the Central Coast.
The event will also feature anti-renewables activist Kate Mason giving her support to Coasties Who Care.
Green-washing meets black-cladding as the climate deniers attempt to pass themselves off as environmentalists, the objectively unwell deny the need for medical intervention, and the demonstrably non-Aboriginal persist on claiming entitlement they never, ever have any right to.
The GuriNgai group have an appalling record of disregard for the natural environment, just as the rest of Coasties Who Care have no record attempting to conserve any area other than those they commercially operate out of.
Whether these people manage to fool some voters to waste their votes, the harm caused to Aboriginal People by these people can’t be underestimated, even as it is overlooked by most.
The end.
A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. 
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