We are requesting a National Inquiry into Confirmation of Aboriginality certificates and those people who are fraudulently claiming to be Aboriginal as well as those who are knowingly providing false Confirmations of Aboriginality to people who are not Aboriginal.

There are three criteria that a person needs to meet to be eligible for Confirmation of Aboriginality. They are:

1 - The person MUST be of Aboriginal descent.

2 - The person MUST identify as an Aboriginal person.

3 - The person MUST be recognised and accepted as an Aboriginal person within the Aboriginal community and be able to prove their Aboriginal descent.

As it stands, there are too many people who are claiming to be Aboriginal, yet they have no other Aboriginal family members and have no connections within the Aboriginal community. 

This is FRAUD. It has a massive impact on Aboriginal people and their every day lives. The Aboriginal people of Australia have already had to endure generations of trauma and racism and to now have to compete with non-Aboriginal people who claim to be Aboriginal but aren't is like a kick in the face. Opportunities are being taken away from Aboriginal people and given to non-Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal people have strong connections to our land, our culture and other Aboriginal people. Those non-Aboriginal people who are fraudulently claiming Aboriginality status have none of these connections.

There are too many people who claim to be Aboriginal, yet they have no connections to any other Aboriginal people within their community and have no idea what is like to live as an Aboriginal person and have those sacred connections. Many of them have accessed archival information relating to language, culture and family history without the permission of Aboriginal people. These claimers then use that information to secure opportunities that are delegated for Aboriginal people, such as university placements, government jobs, preschool placements, scholarship opportunities, housing and financial assistance, just to name a few.

These people are quite happy to take the opportunities that are meant for Aboriginal people while pushing actual Aboriginal people aside, while having no connection or understanding of what it is to be Aboriginal. They then claim Aboriginality for their children and the cycle continues. By doing this they are creating a whole new generation of fake Aboriginals who have no connections to culture, land or people and have never lived the life of an Aboriginal person.

Ultimately they are committing identity fraud and financial fraud. This needs to be stopped and they need to be dealt with through legal means and have consequences for their actions, including repaying all funds they may have received through scholarships, job placements and any other programs as well as charges laid against them for identity and financial fraud.

There needs to be recourse for the organisations who are knowingly handing out these confirmations of Aboriginality to non-Aboriginal people. These organisations are legal entities who are providing false legal documents to people which aid their ability to commit identity and financial fraud.