The Sydney region has had a strange allure for Aboriginal people from further afield, from the time that smallpox first decimated our people in 1789. Some travelled to the burgeoning town for medical assistance, or for food, because many Indigenous people were starving. Some came because everything they knew or valued was disrupted during the early days of colonisation. Others came to trade or obtain the rum that seemed to soothe the confusion and pain of colonial cultural chaos. Others just watched from the periphery. The Guringah, Darug and southern clans tried as much as possible to stay away from the newly arrived visitors. But the British stayed and we struggled to maintain a sustainable existence.

By the 1880s small pockets of traditional owners and others continued to exist in various locations of Sydney. They included Manly, Neutral Bay, Double Bay, Blues’ Point, the north shore of Botany Bay, La Perouse, Kurnell, Sans Souci and a noisy camp at Circular Quay (Nugent 2005: 47). Other settlements have been recorded at Pittwater, Narrabeen Lakes and in isolated pockets along the Hawkesbury and its tributaries (Brook 1999; Foley 2001). Darug families could still be found along the Hawkesbury, the Nepean and Colo Rivers, on the Sackville Reserve, near Rooty Hill, and in and around the various farms working on the western urban fringe (Goodall 1988: 35).

As early as the 1880s the housing developments around what would become the Enfield Rail yards provided small, low cost housing for people of ‘colour’. Pockets of Koori families in rented housing were well established in the Glebe Point, Forest Lodge, Ultimo, Chippendale and Camperdown-Newtown areas as the inhabitants provided a reliable, cheap labour source for the stevedoring industry, and various merchants and factories which operated in the area. By the 1890s, Aboriginal families whose members worked on the railway began to concentrate around the ‘block’ area in Redfern. Numerous housing enclaves for railway workers were constructed in easy walking distance to the main rail workshop areas. Many of these workers were Aboriginal. By the early 1900s an increasingly diverse group of people (including southern Europeans, Indigenous Australians and Chinese) were well established in the tight narrow streets of the inner west.^[2]

Published histories of Sydney, written between the late 19th century and the 1960s, have failed to account for the Aboriginal presence. After George Thornton was appointed Protector of Aborigines in 1881, he pursued a campaign to remove Aboriginal people from Sydney. He forcibly closed down the metropolitan Aboriginal camps and prohibited the provision of rations to city-dwelling Aboriginals (Nugent 2005: 50–7). Despite Thornton’s attempts however, many Koori families were not dependent on welfare. They had access to employment; and rented, lived and continued to work on their traditional lands. These people managed ingeniously to stay outside the Protector’s watch and reach. Their invisibility from the Protector is reflected in the public record, and their stories have been omitted from the historical landscape of Sydney (Nugent 2005: 54–7). This is not the time nor place for speculations as to whether this was an unconscious oversight or a strategic ‘whitewashing’ by historians however its occurrence is noteworthy.

The lure of jobs in Sydney during the Great Depression and the rural decline during the 1920s and 1930s saw an influx of Indigenous people from country areas. This precipitated a turning point in Indigenous affairs in Sydney as Indigenous peoples seeking to relocate from country New South Wales to the metropolitan area, increasingly outnumbered the small groups of surviving traditional custodians. In the 1950s and 1960s Eora peoples were provided with an opportunity to move to the outer Sydney fringe where inexpensive rental accommodation was made available in new housing commission estates in the western suburbs.^[3] These included Chester Hill, Bass Hill, Regents Park, Yagoona, Cabramatta, Warwick Farm, Merrylands and a multitude of other postwar housing estates. Other impoverished inner city dwellers who could afford these rentals went with them seeking healthier living conditions. People of Koori, southern European and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds became mixed in the western sprawl. Those Eora peoples who preferred to remain in city camps or could not afford the rents, were rounded up by authorities and subsequently ‘disappeared’. Their camps—including the well-known one at Narrabeen Lakes—were demolished. The whereabouts of many of these people remained forever unknown to other members of their families, many of whom were too afraid to ask questions. Shortly thereafter, the inner city area around Redfern became a magnet for Indigenous people from rural regions searching for employment or political activity similar to that led by Afro-American Martin Luther King in the United States (King’s anti-segregation campaigns commenced in the mid 1950s). The combination of the two spatial flows of city and country Aboriginal groups (the westerly dispersal of traditional custodians from urban Sydney and the centralisation of rural arrivals towards Redfern), together with the emergence of a new generation of Aboriginal activists fired by the success of international events, had significant consequences for power relations between local and newly arrived Indigenous groups. This was a migration of Aboriginal people, the traditional owners of Sydney were dispersed, and the migrating Aboriginal people from Moree, Dubbo and Cowra (as examples) became the usurpers. This had serious implications for the traditional owners in subsequent generations.

During the early 1970s Indigenous people formerly from rural areas became increasingly vocal and active in community management. For example, the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) became an ‘all black’ institution. This trend towards Indigenous-only managed organisations continued to both strengthen and broaden in scope (Horner 2004). As previously mentioned by Bayles (1988) Aboriginal people saw land rights legislation as an opportunity. However, this opportunity was dominated by the usurping Indigenous groups.

Whilst the Eora voice had once been strong, it became increasingly silent in Indigenous affairs around Sydney. In the inner-city areas it was replaced by the streetwise, union-trained Indigenous voices that maintained strong links to areas such as Dubbo, Cowra and Moree. These same areas were strongholds of unionism within the shearing industry, which was the training ground for many iconic leaders of the Aboriginal resistance movement. This included Mr. Jack Patten, Mr. Bill Ferguson and Mr. William Cooper. The shearing industry and later the waterside industries were the schools for 19th and 20th century Aboriginal activists. The Eora peoples had little to no contact with unionism.

In time it appears respect for traditional custodianship was lost in the struggle for Aboriginal rights. This prolonged battle became too much for many of our Elders who we lost between the mid 1960s and the early 1970s. A power vacuum was created at a critical period. The new usurping black power brokers failed to recognise many of us with our fair skin and blue eyes. Whilst once we had shared our tables, our friendship and our land as Aboriginal peoples, many of us were now not black enough for the politically active. It was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s—during a period of increased understanding about the effects of government policies to biologically ‘absorb’ Aboriginal people into settler society—that we began to receive formal recognition once more as traditional custodians. Unfortunately this timing was inconvenient for some. It was then not in the best interests of some local Aboriginal land councils to recognise us. Indeed some took steps to exclude us from participating within ‘their’ organisations, that were first established to assist us.

The traditional owners of Sydney were ‘black-washed’ from the historical landscape. This was made clear to the writer and 80 other attendees and bystanders at a book launch at Gleebooks, Glebe on Tuesday 30 August 2005 when a heckler and a self-identified spokesperson for a Sydney Aboriginal land council boasted to the assembled group that ‘they’ (i.e. the Aboriginal land council) had proven that Colin Gale was not Aboriginal and that all other people who claimed to be of Darug descent were ‘all liars’. When the writer questioned this elderly person as to his identity he stated that he was originally from Queensland. Further he added that as a member of the Sydney land council ‘it’ had the right to speak on Aboriginal issues as they were the ‘real’ Aboriginal people.

This illustrates the way in which land councils now assume the power and legal right to determine who is Aboriginal and who is not. This goes against the judgments of The Commonwealth v Tasmania [1983]^[4] and Gibbs v Capewell [1983].^[5] Neither individuals nor the New South Wales Aboriginal land council have the legal capacity to determine the Aboriginality of individuals or groups.

It needs to be noted that Mr Colin Gale (on behalf of the Darug people) was unsuccessful in the Federal Court of Australia before Madgwick J on 31 March 2004 in a native title claim.^[6] Court records show this decision was based on Mr. Gale’s contemporary way of life rather than his Darug descent. For example, ‘Mr. Gale is living a suburban way of life indistinguishable from that of many non-Aboriginal Australians’, and ‘there is no evidence that there is now anything like a body of traditional laws and customs, having a normative content in relation to rights or interests in land, which any member of the claimant group now acknowledges or observes’.^[7]

The transcripts of this case have been carefully analysed. Mr Gales’ Aboriginality was not in question. The claim made by the land council representative in Glebe on 30 August 2005 was misinformed and reflects the general attitude underlying attempts to usurp the rights and deny the existence of traditional owners. The LRA facilitates this process in its creation of New South Wales Aboriginal land councils.

The New South Wales land councils were established well before the landmark Mabo and Wik cases and operate in a fashion that has little in common with the objectives and practices envisaged by the Federal Court in the National Native Title Tribunal. However the New South Wales land councils have become cultural auditors through their recognition under State law. They deliver little if anything for the traditional people of the northern suburbs of Sydney as they are not recognised and are not admitted as members of an exclusive club composed of people from other Aboriginal nations. Many do not want to subject themselves to the same public humiliation administered to Mr Gale and do not register themselves on the Register of Native Title Claims. Further, many do not have the financial or political resources (or the family unity) to do so.

It is a matter of public record that the Minister responsible for native title utilises tactics that run dangerously close to an abuse of process against Aboriginal claimants. In the Winbar appeal Stein J remarked:

The local Indigenous peoples of Sydney are aware that the Federal court is hostile. They have witnessed the loss of the Darug and they are all too aware of the opposition of the local Aboriginal land council, which is supported by State legislation through the 1983 Act. The way in which the land rights system operates is difficult to both contest and accept on moral or legal grounds if you are a local, urban traditional owner.

The Hon Brad Hazzard has highlighted in ‘parliamentary debate’ that of the 130 000 Aboriginal people in New South Wales less than 10 per cent are voting members of land councils (Legislative Assembly of New South Wales 2005: 17881) and ‘many Aboriginal people … are fed up to the back teeth with the failings in the Aboriginal land rights system. They are fed up with the fact that very few people in some land councils get the opportunity to benefit’ (Hansard 2005: 17881). This Member of Parliament has raised two important issues; firstly, the poor representation of Aboriginal peoples in New South Wales land councils, and secondly, that only a few share the benefits.

To be a native title claimant in New South Wales you must successfully lodge a registration with the National Native Title Tribunal. In the registration process for native title, traditional owner groups require the support of their New South Wales land councils if they are to be successful native title claimants, otherwise the federal Minister could use the land council as an opposing body or land council members as opposing claimants. The urban traditional owner is in a perilous legal situation within an environment that is characterised by poor representation, poor delivery of benefits, poor administration, and a hostile federal Minister in the Native Title Court. It is important now to review some recent literature on Sydney and what constitutes an Aboriginal land council to ensure that the reader can begin to understand what New South Wales Aboriginal land councils are mandated to do and what is happening in Sydney.