Abstract This policy paper proposes a comprehensive, culturally safe, and Indigenous-led framework to support Aboriginal participation in New South Wales’ renewable energy transition. Drawing on the leadership of Professor Heidi Norman, findings from the James Martin Institute and UTS Centre for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges, the APPI Policy Insights Paper, and the strategic priorities of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC), it outlines the structural reforms necessary to empower Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) to act as key agents in climate resilience, energy sovereignty, and economic self-determination. The paper also addresses the political and cultural barriers to Aboriginal inclusion, such as settler identity fraud and governance disruption, and reaffirms the necessity of respecting authentic cultural authority as articulated in foundational reports like Guringaygupa Djuyal Barray and Aboriginal Cultural Authority on the Central Coast.

1. Introduction: Decolonising Climate Adaptation and Energy Sovereignty Aboriginal landholders in New South Wales possess significant land and cultural assets that could place them at the forefront of a just, renewable energy transition. However, systemic exclusion has prevented First Nations communities from meaningfully participating in climate and energy strategies. The challenges are not solely economic or infrastructural; they are also historical, legal, and epistemic. Climate and energy governance in NSW continues to operate within a settler-colonial framework that marginalises Indigenous sovereignty and misrepresents Aboriginal authority.

The 1983 Aboriginal Land Rights Act marked a major milestone in restitution, yet the backlog of unresolved claims and inadequate protection mechanisms leaves Aboriginal landholders vulnerable (NSWALC, 2019). According to the NSWALC Annual Report 2018–2019, over 38,000 land claims have been lodged since the Act’s inception, with tens of thousands still pending. This bureaucratic inertia constrains planning and blocks opportunities for climate adaptation (NSWALC, 2019).

As Professor Heidi Norman (2023) asserts, this legacy of dispossession is compounded by the placement of Aboriginal reserves on marginal land, often highly exposed to climate risks. Yet it is precisely this land that now holds potential for renewable energy development. This paradox demands a new policy paradigm, one that centres Indigenous landholders as architects of low-carbon futures.

To this end, NSW must move beyond tokenistic consultation and embrace a rights-based, verification-driven model of Aboriginal participation in climate adaptation. This requires rethinking governance through the lens of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the NSW Council for Civil Liberties submission to the Culture is Identity Bill (2022), and foundational documents such as Guringaygupa Djuyal Barray (Lissarrague & Syron, 2024). These texts affirm that cultural legitimacy is rooted in historical continuity, genealogical connection, and community recognition, not institutional convenience or settler projections.

Furthermore, the rise of settler mimicry and false identity claims adds urgency to these reforms. As explored in Sleight of Hand and in the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council’s letter to the NSW Premier (2020), fabricated custodianship undermines not only heritage protection, but the coherence and lawfulness of climate governance itself. The renewable energy transition presents an opportunity to correct these imbalances, by embedding Aboriginal landholders at the centre of strategic planning and implementation, not as stakeholders, but as sovereign decision-makers.

2. Strategic Context: Renewable Energy Zones, Land Tenure, and Cultural Authority

The transition to renewable energy in New South Wales is unfolding rapidly, driven by state targets to replace coal-fired generation and meet net-zero emissions goals. The NSW Government’s establishment of Renewable Energy Zones (REZs), including in the Central-West Orana, New England, South-West, Hunter-Central Coast, and Illawarra regions, marks a significant policy shift in infrastructure planning and energy investment (NSW Government, 2023). These zones concentrate transmission upgrades, solar and wind development, and large-scale battery deployment. Yet to date, the development of REZs has inadequately incorporated Aboriginal landholders, despite the fact that approximately 447 square kilometres of land is owned or managed by Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs), much of it within or adjacent to REZ boundaries (Norman et al., 2025).

This land represents a critical opportunity for both climate adaptation and economic self-determination. As articulated in the APPI Policy Insights Paper (2025), Aboriginal land in NSW could support up to 11 gigawatts of solar and 1.6 gigawatts of onshore wind generation. However, the potential is unrealised. Barriers include the slow pace of land claim resolutions, inadequate funding for pre-feasibility assessments, and the absence of culturally appropriate mechanisms for consent and benefit-sharing. Furthermore, some land under claim remains tied up in administrative limbo, effectively excluding LALCs from both energy development and conservation initiatives (APPI, 2025).

The issue is not simply one of planning oversight, but of structural exclusion. Aboriginal landholders have unique communal governance obligations, cultural responsibilities, and ecological knowledge that remain unrecognised in the dominant project-driven energy development model. Integrating these obligations requires a fundamental reconfiguration of how energy and land use policy are formulated. It demands the inclusion of Indigenous cultural authority, defined by continuity of law, story, and kinship, as a core component of all renewable energy planning and consultation (Guringaygupa Djuyal Barray, 2024; Aboriginal Cultural Authority on the Central Coast, 2021).

In areas such as the South-West Renewable Energy Zone, the Hay LALC has identified strategic interest in developing solar energy projects with equity ownership, aiming to generate income, create local employment, and sustain cultural connection to Country (Norman et al., 2025). Meanwhile, Tibooburra and Brewarrina LALCs have demonstrated how microgrids and standalone energy systems can enhance energy security for remote communities. These case studies reinforce that LALCs are not passive stakeholders, but active agents in energy sovereignty.

To unlock this potential, policy must facilitate partnerships that are not only commercially viable, but culturally endorsed. Existing mechanisms such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) can support these efforts, but only if governance frameworks centre Aboriginal consent, benefit-sharing, and decision-making authority. As outlined in Sleight of Hand (2021), failure to verify custodianship risks entrenching fraudulent actors in these processes, potentially diverting funds, misleading developers, and undermining Aboriginal self-determination.

Thus, strategic planning for energy transition in NSW must incorporate cultural verification, expedite the return of claimed lands, and embed Aboriginal law and land tenure as the foundation of the state’s climate future. Without this, REZs risk reproducing colonial land alienation under the guise of green transformation.

3. Cultural Sovereignty and the Risks of Settler Appropriation in the Energy Transition

The push for renewable energy infrastructure development across New South Wales coincides with a parallel rise in contested cultural authority, identity fraud, and settler mimicry that threatens to undermine Aboriginal-led climate solutions. As energy developers seek to engage with First Nations stakeholders, the absence of rigorous cultural verification processes has left Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) vulnerable to interference by individuals and groups falsely claiming Aboriginal identity or cultural authority (Cooke, 2025; MLALC, 2020).

This challenge is not theoretical. The proliferation of non-Indigenous actors adopting fabricated Aboriginal identities, such as the so-called ‘GuriNgai’ of the Central Coast and Northern Beaches, has already compromised local planning processes and Aboriginal land consultations. These groups often present themselves to developers, councils, and media as legitimate custodians, despite being consistently rejected by recognised Aboriginal communities and Elders (Guringai.org, 2025a; DLALC, 2022). Their claims have no basis in verifiable genealogy, cultural continuity, or community recognition, yet they have been used to distort energy project consultations, environmental approvals, and heritage assessments (Wafer Report, 2021; Premier NSW, 2020).

In the context of the energy transition, this settler mimicry presents profound risks. It undermines Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), misrepresents the cultural needs of Country, and diverts project benefits away from legitimate communities. As noted by the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (2019), protecting Aboriginal rights in renewable energy requires more than inclusion, it requires protection from exploitation, identity fraud, and epistemic violence.

The 2021 Aboriginal Cultural Authority on the Central Coast report affirmed that cultural authority must derive from unbroken familial, territorial, and ceremonial ties to place. This has also been reiterated in Guringaygupa Djuyal Barray (Lissarrague & Syron, 2024), which locates language and cultural continuity with the Guringay people of the Manning and Karuah river systems, not with the falsified claims of the GuriNgai label.

To ensure the integrity of renewable energy partnerships, policy reform must include a requirement for all developers and planners to verify the cultural identity and representational authority of Aboriginal participants through transparent and community-led mechanisms. This verification should draw upon principles of relational accountability, demonstrated genealogy, and recognition by Elders and community organisations (Fforde et al., 2013).

Failure to embed such measures risks reproducing colonial dispossession under a new banner of ‘greenwashing.’ It would allow settler actors to control Aboriginal narratives and resources while excluding those with legitimate ancestral and cultural obligations to land. In contrast, affirming verified cultural authority ensures that renewable energy development supports Aboriginal sovereignty, community wellbeing, and cultural resurgence.

The NSW Government must therefore adopt a dual mandate: advance climate resilience through clean energy, while safeguarding the cultural legitimacy of Aboriginal landholders against identity appropriation. These two goals are not mutually exclusive, they are mutually dependent.

4. Institutional Complicity and the Erosion of Aboriginal Governance

A critical barrier to realising a just and Indigenous-led energy transition is the ongoing failure of public institutions to recognise and support legitimate Aboriginal governance. This failure is compounded when state agencies, councils, and media outlets provide platforms and resources to unverified claimants or groups with no authentic cultural authority, thereby perpetuating epistemic harm and undermining the statutory role of Aboriginal Land Councils.

Evidence from the Central Coast and Northern Beaches of NSW illustrates how councils such as Hornsby Shire have entered into partnerships and heritage consultation processes with unverified individuals and organisations claiming to be ‘GuriNgai’ (Guringai.org, 2025b; Cooke, 2025). These actors have received public funding, advisory status, and media legitimacy, despite repeated objections from the Aboriginal community (including the descendants of Bungaree and Matora) as well as Aboriginal Organisations and statutory bodies (MLALC, 2020; DLALC, 2022).

This pattern of institutional complicity facilitates what Moreton-Robinson (2015) terms ‘white possessiveness’, the drive to reassert settler authority over Aboriginal land, culture, and identity through administrative and symbolic means. In this context, false claimants do not merely misrepresent Aboriginality, they are weaponised by institutions to subvert Aboriginal governance structures such as LALCs and Registered Native Title Bodies Corporate (RNTBCs), weakening the political leverage of Aboriginal communities.

Moreover, some local councils and private developers have used these false entities as convenient interlocutors to bypass statutory consultation mechanisms such as those defined in the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 and the Native Title Act 1993. This undermines the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), erodes the authority of community-controlled organisations, and facilitates cultural erasure through bureaucratic sleight of hand (SLEIGHTOFHAND, 2022).

To counter this, the NSW Government and all affiliated institutions must adopt Aboriginal led protocols for verifying Aboriginal identity and authority in all planning, environmental, and heritage consultation processes. These protocols must be co-designed with LALCs and peak Aboriginal bodies and embedded into legislative frameworks governing land use, development consent, and cultural heritage protection. Crucially, any cultural or environmental assessment associated with renewable energy infrastructure must require certification from the relevant Community, LALC or Native Title organisation.

The upcoming review of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage (Culture is Identity) Bill 2022 offers an important opportunity to legislate these protections. Submissions from Aboriginal bodies such as the DLALC and the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC, 2022) have already highlighted the necessity of centring authentic Aboriginal governance in environmental decision-making. Implementing these recommendations is no longer optional—it is a legal and moral imperative in the context of accelerating climate change.

Ultimately, the integrity of the NSW energy transition hinges on the state’s willingness to reject settler mimicry and institutional complicity in favour of Aboriginal-led, culturally accountable, and legally verifiable governance.

5. First Nations Clean Energy Partnerships: Pathways for Equitable Participation

To ensure Aboriginal communities can meaningfully participate in the renewable energy transition, NSW must adopt policy mechanisms that foster Aboriginal ownership, employment, and benefit-sharing across all levels of the energy economy. The current model, which often frames Aboriginal people as passive stakeholders or cultural consultants, must be replaced by partnership models that embed First Nations governance, equity, and decision-making authority throughout project lifecycles.

Aboriginal Land Councils and Native Title bodies are strategically positioned to act as co-investors and developers in renewable energy projects. As highlighted in the APPI Policy Insights Paper (2025), land owned or claimed by LALCs could generate over 11 gigawatts of solar capacity or 1.6 gigawatts of onshore wind energy. However, actualising this potential requires structural reforms, capacity building, and secure pathways to ownership and long-term revenue streams.

The First Nations Clean Energy Network (FNCEN), established in 2021, provides a promising model. Led by Aboriginal experts and supported by energy, legal, and environmental professionals, the network advocates for First Nations co-design of energy policy and access to equity partnerships, jobs, and training (Norman et al., 2023). FNCEN’s emphasis on community consent, cultural authority, and long-term economic sovereignty stands in stark contrast to models that offer only short-term royalties or subcontracted employment.

Several Aboriginal communities, including the Hay, Tibooburra, and Brewarrina Local Aboriginal Land Councils, have already expressed interest in developing community-owned microgrids and medium-scale solar farms (Norman et al., 2025). These projects illustrate the diversity of approaches needed, from off-grid energy security in remote areas to major infrastructure investment in Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) such as the South-West REZ.

To support these models, the NSW Government must introduce targeted funding and partnership programs such as:

• A Clean Energy Sovereignty Fund administered by NSWALC and FNCEN to support Aboriginal-led feasibility studies, legal due diligence, and community co-design processes.
• Mandated Aboriginal equity in all public-private energy consortia operating on or near Aboriginal land, supported by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA.
• Inclusion of LALCs and RNTBCs as co-proponents in planning pathways under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, rather than relegated to post-hoc consultation.

These measures would operationalise the principles of the Uluru Statement from the Heart (Referendum Council, 2017), which calls not only for voice but for sovereignty and self-determination in all matters affecting Aboriginal communities. Ensuring that Aboriginal peoples are not mere beneficiaries but co-creators of the energy transition aligns with Australia’s international obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), particularly Articles 20, 26 and 32.

NSW stands at a crossroads. It can either replicate the extractive logics of past energy regimes, merely substituting coal with solar, or it can commit to a decolonised, regenerative energy future led by the rightful custodians of the land. A First Nations energy transition is not only possible; it is essential to ensuring that climate solutions do not reproduce the harms of settler-colonial dispossession.

6. Policy Recommendations for a Decolonised Energy Transition

Building on the need for First Nations-led clean energy governance, this section presents targeted policy recommendations designed to embed Aboriginal authority, land rights, and sovereignty into the fabric of the NSW renewable energy transition. These proposals aim to dismantle systemic barriers, correct structural inequalities, and prioritise genuine partnerships over tokenistic consultation.

Legal Recognition and Strengthening of Cultural Authority
The NSW Government must formally recognise the legitimate cultural authority of Aboriginal Land Councils and verified Traditional Owner groups, as affirmed in Guringaygupa Djuyal Barray (Lissarrague & Syron, 2024) and the Aboriginal Cultural Authority on the Central Coast report (2021). Government agencies and proponents must be prohibited from engaging with self-identified groups lacking genealogical evidence or community recognition, as highlighted in the MLALC’s 2020 letter to Premier Berejiklian. This will ensure that energy development on Country respects lawful custodianship and prevents the exploitation of cultural identity for commercial or political gain.

Fast-Track Land Restitution and Claims Resolution
The NSW Government must resolve outstanding Aboriginal land claims as a matter of urgency. These delays not only contravene the spirit of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 but directly inhibit Aboriginal participation in the energy transition. A streamlined process, supported by digital mapping and funded claims research, is essential. Resolved claims should be prioritised in Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) planning and included in energy precinct zoning.

Co-Governance in Renewable Energy Zones (REZs)
The NSW REZ framework must embed co-governance with Aboriginal Communities, Local Aboriginal Land Councils and Recognised Native Title Body Corporates (RNTBCs). This includes First Nations representation on REZ Steering Committees, shared decision-making over project approvals, and binding enforcement of cultural heritage protocols. The APPI Policy Insights Paper (2025) stresses that without such structural inclusion, First Nations interests will remain marginalised.

Establishment of a First Nations Energy Authority (FNEA)
A statutory First Nations Energy Authority should be established in NSW to coordinate Aboriginal participation across planning, policy, regulation, and project development. The authority should work in partnership with NSWALC, the First Nations Clean Energy Network, and Indigenous advisory bodies. Its core mandate would be to uphold cultural rights, advocate for Aboriginal equity, and advise government on best practice models.

Mandatory Cultural Impact Assessment and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
All renewable energy projects on or adjacent to Aboriginal land must undergo Cultural Impact Assessments (CIAs), in addition to existing environmental assessments. These CIAs must be led by Aboriginal cultural authority holders. FPIC must be obtained before any development is approved, consistent with Article 32(2) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the ethical standards articulated in the Our Story, Our Rights, Our Future report (2015).

Secure Long-Term Economic Participation
Aboriginal communities must be provided with opportunities for long-term economic participation beyond one-off royalties or temporary employment. This includes equity ownership, roles in governance, renewable energy training pathways, and investment in community infrastructure. The Clean Energy Sovereignty Fund proposed in Section 5 should be administered under Aboriginal majority governance.

Statutory Exclusion of False Claimants and Front Groups
The NSW Parliament must introduce legislative reforms, as part of the Culture is Identity agenda, that criminalise the deliberate misrepresentation of Aboriginal identity for financial or cultural gain. These measures should exclude false claimants from land-use negotiations, heritage assessments, and access to public funding, as recommended in the DLALC First Nations Accord submission (2022) and Parliamentary Report No. 15 on the Culture is Identity Bill (2023).

Monitoring, Enforcement and Redress
A statutory compliance unit should be established within the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure to monitor Aboriginal engagement in renewable projects. This unit should track developer compliance with FPIC and Aboriginal equity requirements and provide mechanisms for redress where violations occur.

By embedding these recommendations in law and practice, NSW can lead the nation in delivering a genuinely decolonised climate response: one grounded not in performative reconciliation, but in structural justice, cultural integrity, and Indigenous governance. This is the foundation of a just energy transition, where land, culture, and power are returned to the rightful custodians.

Conclusion: Reclaiming the Climate Future Through Indigenous Authority

This policy paper has demonstrated that the renewable energy transition offers not only a technological shift but a profound political and cultural opportunity. If pursued without regard for Aboriginal sovereignty, it risks replicating colonial dispossession under the banner of decarbonisation. However, if it centres verified Aboriginal cultural authority, land restitution, and structural reform, the transition can serve as a catalyst for justice, repair, and self-determination.

A decolonised energy future requires more than industry partnerships or token consultation. It demands a radical transformation of governance that returns decision-making power to Aboriginal communities whose knowledge systems, spiritual custodianship, and cultural law offer pathways not only for planetary healing but for healing the colonial wound. Through legislative reform, institutional accountability, and genuine investment in Aboriginal-led climate solutions, New South Wales can model what a just transition truly means. The time to act is now; before the momentum of renewable capitalism once again leaves First Peoples behind.

JD Cooke

References

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