Jake Cassar, Lisa Bellamy and the Coast Environmental Alliance are mobilising once again against Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council and the local Aboriginal community of the NSW Central Coast, this time calling supporters to gather at Kariong (again) on Sunday, 23 August 2026.
Their latest social-media posts make clear that this is no longer simply an environmental campaign against a particular planning proposal. It continues a much older pattern: delegitimise Darkinjung, imply corruption and secret dealings, portray Aboriginal economic development as something suspicious, then elevate Cassar and Bellamy’s preferred so-called “local bloodline custodians” as the Aboriginal authority the public should listen to instead.
Bellamy’s latest post describes Darkinjung first and foremost as “the developer”. She then asks how Darkinjung could know that rezoning of its Woy Woy Road land may be completed by late September, suggesting “insider knowledge” before escalating immediately to an allegation of “systematic corruption” involving government, big business and developers.
No evidence of corruption is presented.
More importantly, there is nothing secret about the Kariong planning process.
Darkinjung submitted the Woy Woy Road proposal in 2020. It received Gateway support in 2021, was subsequently amended in response to government agency requirements, and went through public exhibition between December 2023 and January 2024.
The NSW Government approved the broader Darkinjung Development Delivery Plan in December 2022. The Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel, not Darkinjung and not Central Coast Council, is the planning proposal authority, while the Minister or Department ultimately determines whether the rezoning is finalised (NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure [DPHI], 2026).
In other words, knowing the anticipated timetable of your own planning proposal is not evidence of corruption.
What is actually proposed at Kariong?
The rhetoric is also increasingly detached from what is actually proposed.
Bellamy claims rezoning would mean “total annihilation for ALL life on and around that land”. Cassar describes it as “the most destructive type of development” and says supporters must find a way to stop it.
The documented proposal is for up to 50 low-density dwellings. Darkinjung states that approximately 7.1 hectares of the 13-hectare property will remain protected under C2 Environmental Conservation zoning, while the residential component occupies the remainder alongside a protected park area (Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council [DLALC], 2026).
The NSW Government similarly states that rezoning itself does not approve clearing or construction.
If the rezoning proceeds, Darkinjung must still lodge a development application, which will itself be publicly exhibited and assessed (DPHI, 2026).
People are entitled to oppose that proposal. They are entitled to raise legitimate ecological, planning and heritage concerns.
What they are not entitled to do is manufacture corruption allegations simply because an Aboriginal organisation is progressing through an established statutory process.
The “local bloodline custodians” return
The most revealing part of the renewed campaign is Bellamy’s declaration that CEA will stand with the “local bloodline descendants of Central Coast”. Cassar similarly advertises the 23 August gathering as an event supporting “Traditional Custodians”.
This is familiar language.
For years Cassar, Bellamy and their associates have promoted members of the disputed GuriNgai network as “local bloodline custodians”, while simultaneously attacking the legitimacy of Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council.
That substitution is central to understanding this campaign.
Darkinjung is an Aboriginal organisation constituted under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (NSW). The NSW Government states that Darkinjung exists to improve, protect and foster the interests of Aboriginal people within its area. The Kariong land itself was granted under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act as compensation for historical Aboriginal dispossession, and financial proceeds from Land Council operations must be reinvested for Aboriginal community benefit (DPHI, 2026).
The Aboriginal Land Rights Act is explicitly about land, self-determination and Aboriginal communities obtaining social, cultural and economic benefit from land returned after dispossession (Aboriginal Affairs NSW, 2026).
Yet the Cassar and Bellamy narrative reverses this history.
Darkinjung becomes merely “the developer”. Aboriginal economic self-determination becomes suspicious profiteering. Ordinary government planning processes become evidence of conspiracy. The Aboriginal organisation holding the land under Aboriginal land-rights legislation becomes the supposed threat to Aboriginal heritage. Meanwhile, Cassar and Bellamy decide which alternative people the public should recognise as the “real” custodians.
That is not Aboriginal self-determination.
It is settler selection of Aboriginal authority.
Environmentalism does not excuse racism
Opposing a Darkinjung development is not inherently racist.
Repeatedly attacking the legitimacy of an Aboriginal Land Council while promoting disputed non-Aboriginal custodianship claims in its place is something very different.
The racism lies in the structure of the campaign: Aboriginal people may have land rights, apparently, but only for as long as they do with that land what Cassar, Bellamy and their allies consider acceptable. Aboriginal organisations may speak for themselves, but their authority is discarded whenever their decisions conflict with the environmental or political objectives of non-Aboriginal activists.
The 23 August gathering therefore deserves to be understood in the context of the campaign that produced it.
This is not simply another rally to “save Kariong”.
It is another attempt to mobilise a settler audience against the exercise of Aboriginal land rights, while once again placing the non-Aboriginal GuriNgai mythology between Aboriginal people and their own Country.
Darkinjung does not need Jake Cassar, Lisa Bellamy or the Coast Environmental Alliance to decide which Aboriginal people are sufficiently authentic to exercise Aboriginal land rights.
That decision was never theirs to make.
A Long Con, Gone on Too Long. 
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