Who We Aren't FAQs

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While we respect the right of coastal mob to use the word Eora / Iyura in their identification with place, we do not agree with the way Local Aboriginal Land Councils have misused the Dharug word  "Eora" over the years to erase the acknowledgement and actual presence of Darug-speaking peoples historically and today. 

We are Baramadagal / Burramattagal people of the Darug language group / Nation. 

From time to time we hear that organisations and institutions are culturally advised by "Dharug Community" not to talk to us. Sometimes reasons include saying that we do not live and work on-Country (which is not true) or that we are going for Native Title so we don't have to share work in Parramatta with Darug artists (which is also not true).

We have no need to defend ourselves against these assertions or to continually justify our position within our own Community and on the land that we culturally belong to. We can, however, state what is plainly true: Baramadagal people continue to live on our clan Country and across broader Darug lands. Some of our people live elsewhere and respect the traditional custodians of the land they live on while returning to Country to fulfil cultural responsibilities, just as many Aboriginal people who live and work on Darug Country return to their own unceded ancestral lands. 

We work across many different spaces, including essential services and ordinary parts of community life, while individuals hold varying degrees of cultural practice, knowledge and authority. 

Consequently, we may not always have been visible in the particular cultural, arts or government spaces where people have come to expect Aboriginal cultural practice to be visible. But not being visible to an institution is not the same thing as being absent from Country or Community.

Nothing about where you live or work cedes the Sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples anywhere across the continent, including for Baramada and Baramadagal people.

We ask institutions to be careful about conflating funding success, organisational visibility or government recognition with cultural authority. Where such claims are made about our community, we expect those claims to be tested against the people they concern and the cultural governance structures through which we identify and exercise our responsibilities. 

This remains the case where something has been said in a “confidential advisory” capacity. Confidentiality may be appropriate in some circumstances, but it should not turn untested assertions about other family groups in the community into established fact, which is a pattern we have identified as being rife.

We also provide cultural advisory services and we can explain the basis for our advice and observations, and we hope that once people have spent some time with us their confidence and capacity grows so that they can explain what they believe to be true, and why, too.

There is a revealing history behind how cultural visibility operates in Western Sydney.

We can best explain it through helping you understand the roles of Local Aboriginal Land Councils and the Western Sydney Arts scene and funding situation.

Local Aboriginal Land Councils 

Most people would assume that Local Aboriginal Land Councils would represent the interests of traditional custodian communities. In some other States / Territories it does operate this way which can produce beneficial outcomes. 

Unfortunately in NSW the legislation that established LALCs presumes that no mobs across NSW can demonstrate continuing connection to Country and so it created a "homogenous Aboriginal identity" so that any Aboriginal person can join a LALC without membership following traditional cultural protocols of belonging.

On our clan Country of Baramada, the Deerubbin Local Aboriginal Land Council is the relevant LALC. You should know that they do not allow Baramadagal or other Darug people to join. They were previously known as the Darug Local Aboriginal Land Council until they changed the name in 1996.

We occasionally have dialogue with the LALC and remain open to conversation, but ultimately it is a State Government entity empowered by NSW State Law, not a Traditional Custodian vehicle empowered by bloodline authority (allodial title) grounded in First Laws.

Western Sydney Arts Community 

For a long time, Aboriginal cultural connection and creativity was often happening through grassroots, community-led practice without the institutional infrastructure or levels of public investment that make cultural activity highly visible.

The establishment of the Aboriginal Arts Board in 1973 marked a major national shift towards dedicated Aboriginal arts funding and Aboriginal participation in decision-making. Yet Western Sydney remained profoundly underfunded in the broader arts system: between 2008 and 2014 it received only around 1% of federal and 5% of state arts funding, compared with 36% and 87% respectively for Eastern Sydney (source: State of the Arts in Western Sydney, p. 24)

What has changed is not necessarily cultural activity being practiced, but the investment and infrastructure around it. From the 2010s onward, significant public money began flowing into Western Sydney cultural infrastructure, followed more recently by explicit policy commitments to correct historic underinvestment.

In 2025, the NSW Government committed $5 million to a new Western Sydney arts strategy explicitly framed around repairing historic funding inequity and putting First Nations arts and leadership at the centre; in 2026, it established a dedicated $500,000 Western Sydney First Nations Program.

Investment should not create the 'cultural community' with it's self serving protocols, but rather create the conditions in which existing cultural communities and activities become visible, resourced and institutionally recognised.

Where funding systems use administrative definitions of Aboriginality, ideas about "representation" and "community" do not necessarily correspond with overarching First Laws and specific cultural protocols and governance structures operating on specific clan land.

Therefore, increased funding can also intensify existing tensions about who is recognised, who is consulted and who is positioned as having authority to speak for particular people and places.

This is why we advocate for investment into Nation rebuilding first and foremost, as cultural authority is not created simply because an organisation has received funding, established an advisory group, occupied an institutional position or become visible to government. Nor does institutional visibility necessarily establish that an organisation represents every Traditional Custodian family group within a broader language group or cultural landscape.

For us, the question is therefore not simply who is visible? It is:

-  who was already here?

- who holds the relevant cultural relationships and responsibilities? and

- what systems are being used to determine whose voice is recognised?

Our position is not intended to diminish other Aboriginal peoples, businesses or organisations. It is about ensuring that the increasing investment in Western Sydney creates stronger conditions for genuine Nation rebuilding and forms of creative expression that come from that legitimately established space, rather than inadvertently creating competition over representation, visibility and resources.

The Native Title Act 1993 (Cth) provides a legal framework through which particular rights and interests held under traditional laws and customs may be recognised within Australian law.

Native title recognition is therefore a particular form of legal recognition. It is not a comprehensive system for determining who is Aboriginal, which family holds cultural authority in a particular place, who may undertake cultural work, or who may speak for Country across every cultural, community, arts or public context.

Our cultural authority does not arise from, or depend upon, a native title determination. It arises from our continuing identity as Baramadagal people, our genealogy, our relationship with Country, our laws and customs, and the cultural responsibilities we carry as a family and community.

Accordingly, the existence or absence of a native title claim, determination, prescribed body corporate or other native title structure should not be treated by governments or institutions as the sole, or necessarily determinative, measure of whether a family has a legitimate cultural relationship with, or authority to undertake work on, a particular Country.

This distinction is particularly important in Western Sydney, where colonisation, dispossession, removal and displacement have created complex contemporary patterns of Aboriginal residence, return to Country and community participation.

We are not suggesting that native title recognition is unimportant. It is an important legal mechanism for recognising and protecting particular Aboriginal rights and interests. At the same time, the native title framework remains a contested and evolving area of law, including concerns about its alignment with the rights and standards articulated by the United Nations and other international human rights frameworks.

For a Traditional Owner family, pursuing recognition may instead be part of a much longer recognition journey: seeking to ensure that the family's continuing relationship with Country, identity, laws, customs and responsibilities are recognised and are not further obscured or erased within the ongoing structures and consequences of settler colonialism.

A native title process is therefore one pathway through which particular rights may be recognised in Australian law. It should not be confused with the much broader question of who a people are, where they come from, what Country they belong to, or what cultural responsibilities they continue to carry.

Whether and when a family group, or a collective of family groups, choose to pursue a native title claim will depend upon a range of legal, cultural, community and strategic considerations. The decision to pursue such a claim should not be characterised as an attempt to “get at” another Aboriginal person / business, family or organisation.

We maintain wide networks within our family group and across the Darug landscape with other family groups. 

We encourage you to do the same. 

Culturally we defer to people whose family groups are traditionally from a certain area as the first attempt to engage. Or work in collectives with mixed lineages where we state that clearly.

Often in mainstream setting across Darug lands, there may not be any other Darug people present, in which case we will assume responsibility for protocols on that occasion. However, we would never orchestrate a space to exclude other Darug people so that we can always be seen as the 'highest point of cultural authority'. 

The case of Kimberley Land Council v Williams [2018] FCA 1955, involved a challenge to the registration of an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) under the Native Title Act (NTA), Barker J upheld the decision of the delegate of the Native Title Register of the ILUA and made the following observation at [83] of the delegate’s reasons:

Where there are decisions that need to be made that will affect a particular part of the Balanggarra country, it is the family with the traditional connection to that area has pre-eminence in what the decision should be. This view is shared with the rest of the group, who, as required by their traditional laws and customs, ‘come behind’ and support that view, expressed by the persons who speak for that area.

We mention this protocol as articulated here, to show that as the Darug Community comprises of different family groups, you should naturally see people stepping forward as cultural protocol permits, and stepping back and supporting others as cultural protocol asks for.

If you don't see this, ask questions. 

We don't perform culture.

Within our cultural kinship system, we do have family members who may deliver cultural formalities where there is proper alignment to do so.

We also have members of the Community who may collaborate with you in the work you are doing. We encourage you to read the engagement guide first though, to see if your request is ready to be proposed to us.

Cultural governance is the original governing system of this continent. It continues today through kinship, obligation, relationship, and cultural law (First Laws).

For Baramadagal Darug people, governance is grounded in kinship-based authority, where roles and responsibilities flow through lineage and family connections rather than elections or appointments.

It is also centred on Country. Country is a living relation, and decisions are made with Country, not about it. Our responsibilities to water, land, ancestors, and future generations guide every action we take. Cultural governance is intergenerational, with Eldership and community leadership authority earned through lifelong practice, service, and practice of cultural responsibility. Accountability is relational to Kin, Country and Community. And governance is collective, consensual, and grounded in responsibility.

Cultural governance is continuing law. It exists whether the colonial state recognises it or not.

Colonial governance, on the other hand, is the system imposed through invasion and legislation. It operates through individual authority and legal appointment; to boards, directors, CEOs, rather than kinship. It is driven by compliance with legislation, constitutions, audits, and formal reporting. These structures prioritise efficiency, hierarchy, and risk management, not cultural obligation or relational accountability. Colonial governance is a tool, not a source of cultural legitimacy.

The Baramadagal Darug Tribal Governing Council (BDTGC) uses a corporate structure because it provides visibility in the mainstream world and the ability to function within colonial systems. It allows us to hold funding and insurance, enter contracts, meet requirements, and ensure administrative protection. But this structure does not create our authority.

Cultural governance provides identity, legitimacy, authority, obligation, continuity, and relationship to Country. Colonial governance provides visibility, structural safety, access to resources, and permission to operate in imposed systems. Neither replaces the other, but we believe they can work alongside each other.

The way we describe this balance is through a simple metaphor:

The corporation is the canoe; kinship is the river.

The canoe allows us to travel through the mainstream world; safely, visibly, and "legally". But it is the river that gives direction, carries our story, shapes and shares our responsibilities, and determines who is allowed to steer and when.

The canoe has no meaning without the river beneath it.

BDTGC is not a confirmation-paper-issuing corporation. 

Confirmation of Aboriginality papers were never designed to replace cultural connection. They were meant to affirm what Community already knows: that a person is of genuine Aboriginal genealogical descent, is recognised by the community they belong to (are claimed) and identifies as an Aboriginal person.

The problem now is that too many people are seeking paperwork instead of culture. Instead of doing the deep relational work; reconnecting with family, learning Country, showing up, building trust - they go straight to incorporated Community structures asking for a certificate.

Communities spend their time, labour and cultural energy issuing these papers, only to watch some people disappear the moment they get what they came for. The certificate enables them to be tokenised when they go back into their mainstream lives; for jobs, scholarships, or social legitimacy, while the cultural work remains undone and the Community they claim receives nothing in return.

This is not what Aboriginal identity or Community responsibility looks like, and it is not something we support.

Confirmation papers were meant to uphold community authority, not be a shortcut around it. Without the relationships, kinship accountability and ongoing cultural engagement, a piece of paper means nothing.

If you believe you are a descendent of the lineage associated with the BDTGC, we encourage you to look for opportunities to build your relationships organically without the agenda of obtaining papers.

We appreciate that colonisation has caused disconnection across many family lines, and where we can create spaces for mob to come together to learn, heal and connect we will.

We just ask that you prioritise connecting genuinely - not just for papers.