The Central Coast of New South Wales (NSW) is the site of a profound crisis at the intersection of acute housing shortage and colonial resistance. This report synthesises evidence demonstrating how a coordinated network of settler activist organizations including principally the Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA), led by figures like Jake Cassar and Lisa Bellamy, and supported by the fraudulent GuriNgai identity movement has deliberately obstructed Aboriginal-led housing and renewable energy developments. Drawing on critical Indigenous theory, cultic studies, and discourse analysis, this paper defines the network’s strategy as a form of “settler simulation,” characterized by the performance of pseudocustodianship and the strategic use of “conspirituality.” Key findings show that the network’s campaigns, notably Save Kariong Sacred Lands and Save Kincumber Wetlands, leverage fabricated heritage claims (such as the debunked Gosford Glyphs) to induce policy gridlock, thereby undermining the statutory authority of the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC) and directly contributing to the region’s escalating homelessness rates. The analysis concludes that this phenomenon functions as a contemporary form of counterinsurgency, leveraging cultural fraud to preserve white possessive control over land and policy.
1. Introduction: The Crisis of Truth on the Central Coast
The Central Coast region of NSW is experiencing a severe housing and homelessness emergency, marked by a 37.5% rise in rough sleeping between 2024 and 2025 (Central News, 2025; Central Coast Homelessness Analysis, 2025). This crisis is exacerbated by profound housing unaffordability, with over 97% of rentals being inaccessible to low-income earners (Shelter NSW, 2025). In response, Aboriginal governance bodies, specifically the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council (DLALC), have sought to utilize their statutory landholdings for culturally appropriate housing and climate-aligned renewable energy projects (APPI, 2025; Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council, 2022).
These Aboriginal-led initiatives have faced persistent and sophisticated opposition from a coalition of non-Indigenous activist groups. This report focuses on the core network driving this obstruction: the Coast Environmental Alliance (CEA), its charismatic leader Jake Cassar, administrator Lisa Bellamy, linked auxiliary groups such as Campfire Collective and Coasties Who Care, and the foundational GuriNgai identity fraud movement (Guringai.org, 2025). This paper argues that the network’s activities are not legitimate dissent but a structurally violent political strategy rooted in the appropriation and manipulation of Indigenous cultural authority.
2. Theoretical Framework: Simulation and Conspirituality
The phenomenon observed on the Central Coast is best understood through four interconnected theoretical concepts:
2.1. The White Possessive and Settler Simulation
White possessiveness, as articulated by Moreton-Robinson (2015), describes the settler-colonial insistence on ownership and control over Indigenous land, culture, and identity. This logic underpins the network’s actions, which aim to invalidate legitimate Aboriginal governance (DLALC) and replace it with a simulated, non-threatening alternative (GuriNgai).
Settler simulation refers to the performative, aesthetic, and fraudulent reproduction of Indigenous cultural authority by non-Indigenous actors to maintain epistemic and political control over Country (Darnett, 2025). This practice utilizes pseudocustodianship; the claim to Aboriginal identity or authority without genealogical, cultural, or community legitimacy, to seize discursive space and obstruct Aboriginal self-determination (Andrews et al., 2022).
2.2. Cultic Dynamics and Conspirituality
The network exhibits characteristics of a high-demand, cultic structure (Singer, 2003). Spiritual populism and authoritarian aesthetics are leveraged to attract and mobilize followers (Coco, 2023).
Crucially, this movement is characterized by conspirituality, a hybrid worldview fusing New Age spiritual beliefs with anti-establishment conspiracy theories (Ferretti, 2023; Ward & Voas, 2011). This framework positions the network’s leaders as enlightened defenders of sacred land against corrupt state agencies and “corporate” Aboriginal bodies, aligning their local activism with global sovereign citizen and anti-government agendas (Cohen, 2025; Gillespie, 2025).
3. Analysis of the Network’s Structure and Strategy
The obstructionist network is highly organized, with each component playing a specific role in cultural fraud, mobilization, and policy sabotage.
3.1. The GuriNgai Fraud: Foundation of Pseudocustodianship
The GuriNgai movement forms the necessary cultural shield for the network’s opposition. Formal resolutions by recognized Aboriginal People, Communities, Leaders and Aboriginal Land Councils (DLALC and Metropolitan LALC) have repeatedly and explicitly rejected the GuriNgai identity claims as lacking genealogical legitimacy and community recognition (Formal Statement, 2025). Legal documentation confirms this fraud: a Native Title application (NC2013/002) was discontinued due to an “absence of credible evidence to support the claimants’ connection” (Formal Statement, 2025; Guringai.org, 2025).
Despite this conclusive refutation, the network elevates self-identified GuriNgai figures to manufacture an illusion of Aboriginal dissent, providing the CEA with a veneer of Indigenous endorsement necessary to evade accusations of settler interference.
3.2. Jake Cassar and the Charismatic Core of CEA
Jake Cassar operates as the charismatic nucleus of the network, blending environmental activism with apocalyptic survivalist rhetoric and a performance of spiritual connection to Country (Crockford, 2021). Cassar, who is non-Aboriginal, engages in overt settler simulation through bushcraft performance and the use of quasi-Indigenous symbology, establishing himself as an arbiter of sacred truth without possessing cultural authority or community recognition (Cooke, 2025a).
His messaging consistently promotes a conspiritual worldview, framing development conflicts as a “spiritual warfare” against deep state conspiracies and corporate corruption (Guringai.org, 2025). This rhetoric serves to mobilize a heterogeneous base that includes disillusioned environmentalists, New Age spiritualists, and far-right anti-government adherents (Jarzabkowski et al., 2023).
3.3. Lisa Bellamy, Campfire Collective, and Coasties Who Care
The network’s decentralized structure relies on ‘soft-entry’ groups that mask the underlying ideological rigidity. Lisa Bellamy functions as the key administrative link and spokesperson, leveraging her political background to file policy objections and amplify the network’s narratives (Cooke, 2025b).
Groups such as Campfire Collective and Coasties Who Care blend ostensibly benign activities (e.g., community aid, youth support) with the movement’s ideological recruitment (Jarzabkowski et al., 2023). This humanitarian aesthetic provides an image laundering function, sanitizing the CEA’s more extremist affiliations and drawing new participants into the orbit of simulated custodianship and anti-development protest.
3.4. Weaponising Pseudo-Sacredness: Save Kariong and Save Kincumber
The campaigns Save Kariong Sacred Lands and Save Kincumber Wetlands exemplify the strategic use of simulated sacredness to induce policy capture and project delay (Guringai.org, 2023a).
- The Kariong Precedent: The campaign against DLALC’s housing proposal at Kariong relied on the Gosford Glyphs (Kariong Hieroglyphs), a cluster of Egyptian-style carvings widely established by archaeologists as a modern hoax (Metraux, 1953). The campaign’s political effectiveness was entirely independent of the claim’s veracity, demonstrating how pseudoarchaeology can generate emotional spectacle and institutional paralysis, overriding the findings of legitimate cultural heritage assessments and the authority of the DLALC (Blancke & Boudry, 2021).
- The Outcome: The impact of the Kariong campaign potentially delaying the delivery of critically needed affordable housing illustrates that settler simulation achieves a material goal: it stalls Aboriginal economic and political self-determination while preserving settler control over land use (Guringai.org, 2025).
4. Material Impact: Obstruction of Housing and Climate Justice
The CEA network’s use of cultural fraud and epistemic chaos has had quantifiable, negative material consequences for the Central Coast community.
4.1. Exacerbating Structural Violence
The persistent delays to Aboriginal-led housing projects directly exacerbate the region’s homelessness crisis. By obstructing the DLALC’s capacity to develop land for community benefit, the network ensures that the acute lack of affordable, non-market housing persists (Cooke, 2025b). This localized obstruction compounds systemic failures, actively manufacturing structural violence where Aboriginal families and vulnerable residents are denied secure exit pathways from homelessness and domestic violence (Coast Shelter, 2025).
4.2. Climate Sabotage by Proxy
The network’s opposition extends beyond housing to Aboriginal-led initiatives in the renewable energy sector. Content analysis reveals the CEA’s campaigns against legitimate DLALC projects align with broader climate denialist and anti-renewable agendas (Taplin, 2023; Walker, 2023). By undermining Aboriginal Land Councils, the network obstructs projects that support regional emissions reduction and climate resilience, often under the guise of conservation, demonstrating a clear case of white possessive anti-environmentalism (Moreton-Robinson, 2015).
5. Conclusion: Simulation as Counterinsurgency
The Central Coast network, built around the CEA, Jake Cassar, Lisa Bellamy, and the GuriNgai fraud, is a potent case study in contemporary settler resistance. This movement employs settler simulation as a sophisticated form of counterinsurgency against decolonial progress. By leveraging conspirituality and manufactured sacredness, the network successfully:
- Displaces verified Aboriginal authority (DLALC) with non-Indigenous performance (Cassar, Bellamy, GuriNgai).
- Delegitimizes Aboriginal development by framing it as corrupt or spiritually compromised.
- Drains Aboriginal resources through vexatious, repeated, and fraudulent appeals and objections.
The ethical inversion is stark: settlers lacking cultural legitimacy are framed as the heroic defenders of sacred land, while the verified Aboriginal Peoples seeking to build homes for their community are cast as the aggressors. Breaking this pattern requires clear institutional verification standards (AIATSIS, 2023), formal exclusion of fraudulent actors, and statutory protections to secure Aboriginal self-determined development from sabotage. The struggle for housing justice on the Central Coast is inseparable from the commitment to cultural truth and the recognition of, and respect for, Aboriginal governance.
JD Cooke
Proud Marramarra Carigal/Garigal man.
A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. 
Leave a comment