The campaign’s environmental concerns do not excuse misrepresenting the land, the planning process or Aboriginal authority

At the so-called Save Kariong Sacred Lands rally on 23 August 2026, Lisa Bellamy presented the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council’s Kariong planning proposal as an immediate threat to sacred land, Aboriginal cultural heritage, wildlife, wetlands and the integrity of conservation zoning across New South Wales.

Bellamy delivers these claims as part of a broader campaign narrative in which an Aboriginal community-controlled land council is portrayed as a conventional property developer threatening land that non-Aboriginal activists and their preferred claimants must supposedly protect.

Bellamy is entitled to oppose rezoning. She is entitled to argue that the ecological assessments are insufficient, that biodiversity offsets are unacceptable, or that land currently zoned C2 Environmental Conservation should remain protected.

She is not entitled to replace the documented proposal with a more dramatic fictional version of it.

The central premise promoted at the rally was false: Darkinjung is not proposing to develop the legally recognised Kariong Sacred Lands Aboriginal Place.

The proposed site is not the Kariong Sacred Lands

The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure states unequivocally that the planning proposal is not developing the Kariong Sacred Lands. The Darkinjung-owned site adjoins Brisbane Water National Park, but it is not part of the national park or the recognised Kariong Sacred Lands Aboriginal Place located to its south.

This is the most important fact in the entire controversy, yet it was obscured throughout Bellamy’s address.

The Department’s published material does not describe this as a technical boundary dispute or an unresolved interpretation. It states that the proposal “is not developing Kariong Sacred Lands” and will not affect the land legally defined under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure [DPHI], 2024). (Planning NSW)

Even the Coast Community News article promoting the rally exposed the campaign’s contradictory framing. It first described the development site as “part of the Kariong Sacred Lands,” then stated that it was located a short distance from the registered Aboriginal place. Both propositions cannot be correct. The official mapping confirms that the development site and the recognised Aboriginal Place are separate areas (Coast Community News, 2026; DPHI, 2024). (Coast Community News)

The campaign title, Save Kariong Sacred Lands, therefore performs much of the misinformation before Bellamy even begins speaking. It encourages the public to believe that the gazetted Aboriginal Place is being rezoned for housing when it is not.

Fifty houses have not been approved

Bellamy’s speech repeatedly treated a possible future residential subdivision as though government had already authorised houses, clearing and construction.

That is false.

The matter presently before the NSW planning authorities is a planning proposal to amend the Central Coast Local Environmental Plan. It seeks to rezone 5.7 hectares of Darkinjung-owned land to R2 Low Density Residential.

A rezoning decision would not authorise Darkinjung to clear the site, excavate land, subdivide lots or build houses. It would only permit Darkinjung to submit a future development application. That application would require further environmental, social and economic assessment, public exhibition and formal determination. Individual dwellings would also require development consent (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

The NSW Planning Portal continued to list the matter as a planning proposal at the Gateway Implementation and post-exhibition stage as of 24 August 2026. It did not display a published final rezoning decision, much less an approved subdivision or housing development (NSW Planning Portal, 2026). (Planning Portal NSW)

Bellamy converted a conditional sequence into an accomplished fact.

A possible rezoning became an approved development. A proposal capable of supporting up to 50 future dwellings became a 50-home estate ready to proceed. Potential future environmental effects became destruction already authorised.

That is not careful advocacy. It is a distortion of the planning process.

More than half the property would remain conservation land

The rally rhetoric also created the impression that the entire bushland property would be opened for residential development.

The proposal concerns 5.7 hectares. Another 7.1 hectares, more than half the property, would remain environmental conservation land and provide a buffer between the proposed residential zone and Brisbane Water National Park (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

This does not mean that the proposed clearing of any part of the property is environmentally insignificant. Nor does it settle whether the proposed conservation areas, buffers or biodiversity offsets are adequate.

It does mean that claims suggesting the whole site will be cleared or converted into housing are false.

A credible environmental campaign would identify the precise area proposed for rezoning, examine the vegetation communities and species habitat within that footprint, assess fragmentation and edge effects, and challenge the proposed mitigation measures with evidence.

Bellamy instead relied on an undifferentiated story in which the entire site, the neighbouring national park and the Kariong Sacred Lands were blurred into one threatened landscape.

Cultural heritage assessment was not ignored

Bellamy’s speech suggested that Aboriginal cultural heritage was being disregarded or placed directly in the path of development.

The documented record says otherwise.

An Aboriginal cultural heritage assessment was prepared for the site. Twelve Registered Aboriginal Parties were consulted. The proposed residential zoning avoids known Aboriginal cultural heritage items except for one rock engraving, which Darkinjung proposes to preserve within a pocket park surrounded by a 20-metre buffer.

The assessment recommended measures including protective fencing during any future construction. Heritage NSW independently reviewed the cultural heritage report and supported the proposed conservation areas encompassing most recorded sites (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

It remains open to Bellamy or any other person to dispute the adequacy of the assessment. They may argue that further survey work is needed, that unidentified places could exist, or that the proposed buffer is insufficient.

What they cannot honestly claim is that cultural heritage was never assessed, that Registered Aboriginal Parties were excluded, or that known engravings have already been approved for destruction.

The difference is substantial. One position challenges the quality of an assessment. The other pretends that no assessment exists.

The koala, wetland and bushfire claims were overstated

Bellamy also invoked koalas, wetlands, wildlife displacement and bushfire evacuation as though each issue had been ignored and each predicted harm was established.

Site-specific koala surveys commissioned for the proposal did not detect koalas. The broader Kariong area appears within regional koala-significance mapping, but the Department explains that this mapping is indicative and includes already urbanised areas across Kariong, West Gosford, Point Clare, Tascott and Koolewong. Regional mapping identifies areas requiring investigation; it does not prove that koalas occupy every mapped property (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

Bellamy may criticise the survey methodology or request further seasonal investigation. She should not represent koala displacement as an established site-specific fact without evidence of koalas occupying the proposed residential footprint.

The identified wetlands are situated within the area proposed for C3 Environmental Management, rather than the proposed R2 residential zone. Darkinjung proposes retaining them for stormwater detention. Any future works affecting the C3 area would require development assessment addressing potential impacts on the wetlands (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

Again, legitimate questions remain about hydrology, indirect impacts and whether use for stormwater detention is environmentally appropriate. Those questions do not establish that the wetlands have been approved for destruction.

Bushfire risk was also assessed. A strategic bushfire study identified Woy Woy Road as the principal evacuation route and a possible secondary route through Jeniwa Close. The NSW Rural Fire Service was consulted and raised no objection to the planning proposal at the relevant assessment stages (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

Bellamy may disagree with that assessment, but disagreement is not evidence that bushfire risk was ignored.

Rezoning does not create a binding statewide precedent

Before the rally, Bellamy claimed that approving the proposal would establish a precedent for environmentally significant land across the Central Coast and New South Wales to be rezoned for development.

This was repeated as one of the campaign’s principal warnings (Coast Community News, 2026). (Coast Community News)

A rezoning decision may be invoked rhetorically in later planning debates. It may influence political expectations. It does not create a binding legal precedent requiring other C2 properties to be rezoned.

Each planning proposal must demonstrate strategic and site-specific merit. Environmental, social and economic effects must be assessed, and proposed mitigation measures must be justified. Approval of the Darkinjung proposal would not compel approval of another proposal concerning different land, vegetation, heritage, infrastructure or planning circumstances (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

Bellamy’s “where does it stop?” argument is political rhetoric, not a description of how planning law operates.

Council was not secretly pushed aside

Bellamy’s narrative also implied that special arrangements for Darkinjung had displaced the ordinary planning system and removed Central Coast Council from the process.

The omitted fact is that Central Coast Council was offered the role of planning proposal authority and declined it. The Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel subsequently assumed that responsibility.

The panel’s involvement was not evidence of a secret exemption. It followed the council’s own decision not to act as planning proposal authority.

If the land is rezoned and Darkinjung later submits a development application, that application would still be assessed and publicly exhibited through the applicable development process (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

Darkinjung is not simply a private developer

Perhaps the most politically revealing feature of Bellamy’s speech was the reduction of Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council to the status of an ordinary commercial developer.

Darkinjung is an incorporated Aboriginal statutory body constituted under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. The land was granted through the land-rights system as compensation for historical dispossession and continuing Aboriginal disadvantage.

Financial proceeds from the operations of a Local Aboriginal Land Council must be reinvested in improving, protecting and fostering the interests of Aboriginal people within its area (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

Darkinjung remains subject to planning, heritage and environmental law. Its status does not make every proposal environmentally sound or immune from criticism.

However, describing Darkinjung merely as a developer strips the land-rights context from the dispute. It encourages the public to view Aboriginal-owned land as though its only legitimate future is permanent preservation for the enjoyment of the wider population.

The Department directly addresses that expectation. Aboriginal land rights are not a process through which land is returned to Aboriginal people only to be absorbed back into the public estate. Land rights are intended to provide the economic resources required for Aboriginal self-determination (DPHI, 2024). (Planning NSW)

The public cannot celebrate Aboriginal land rights only when Aboriginal land remains economically inactive.

Bellamy’s selective approach to Aboriginal authority

Bellamy’s environmental claims were accompanied by an equally troubling cultural framework.

Campaign-aligned claimants were presented as authoritative traditional custodians, while Darkinjung, a statutory Aboriginal community-controlled organisation, was treated as culturally suspect, commercially motivated or disconnected from Country.

The modern GuriNgai identity promoted through this network is not an uncontested historical fact.

The Aboriginal Heritage Office found that “Kuringgai” was created by John Fraser in 1892 as a speculative super-tribal category extending across a vast area. The Office concluded that applying “Guringai” or its spelling variants as an authentic traditional identity for northern Sydney was not historically warranted. It distinguished Fraser’s invented category from the historical Gringai or Guringay people of the Hunter region (Aboriginal Heritage Office, 2015). (Aboriginal Heritage Office)

That finding does not determine the genealogy of every person using the name. It does establish that Bellamy cannot responsibly present modern GuriNgai authority over Kariong as settled, uncontested history.

The political structure of the rally was therefore deeply problematic. Aboriginal legitimacy was elevated when it supported Bellamy’s campaign and discounted when exercised through Darkinjung.

That is not respect for Aboriginal self-determination. It is the selection of Aboriginal voices according to whether they validate a pre-existing settler campaign.

Environmental advocacy requires factual honesty

The Kariong proposal raises legitimate environmental questions.

The proposed residential footprint may affect vegetation and habitat. Conservation zoning should not be changed casually. Biodiversity offsets deserve scrutiny. Heritage assessments should be examined critically. Bushfire, traffic, stormwater and cumulative ecological impacts must be rigorously tested.

None of those concerns requires falsehood.

The campaign did not need to claim that Darkinjung was developing the legally recognised Kariong Sacred Lands. It did not need to describe a rezoning proposal as an approved housing estate. It did not need to pretend that heritage, wetlands, biodiversity and bushfire risks had never been assessed. It did not need to portray a statutory Aboriginal land council as merely a private developer while presenting historically contested GuriNgai claims as unquestionable authority.

Bellamy chose the more dramatic narrative because it generates greater fear and mobilisation.

The honest description is considerably less sensational:

Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council is seeking to rezone 5.7 hectares of Aboriginal-owned land adjoining, but not forming part of, the recognised Kariong Sacred Lands Aboriginal Place. The rezoning could permit a later application for a subdivision of up to 50 dwellings. More than half the property would remain conservation land. No clearing, subdivision or housing construction has yet been approved.

People may still oppose that proposal.

They should oppose the proposal that actually exists, not the one Lisa Bellamy constructed for the rally.

References

Aboriginal Heritage Office. (2015). Filling a void: A review of the historical context for the use of the word “Guringai”. (Aboriginal Heritage Office)

Coast Community News. (2026, August 19). Last-ditch effort to save Kariong land from rezoning. (Coast Community News)

NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure. (2024). Kariong planning proposal. (Planning NSW)

NSW Planning Portal. (2026). Darkinjung LALC (Kariong), Woy Woy Road: PP-2021-7303. (Planning Portal NSW)