Yamba resident and proud Yaegl woman, Diane Randall, elected to the NSW Aboriginal Land Council as the North Coast representative

 

Australian Rural & Regional News, 20 March 2024:

Yamba resident and proud Yaegl woman, Diane Randall, has been elected to the NSW Aboriginal Land Council as the North Coast representative, one of two new faces on the council elected to protect the interests and further the aspirations of its members and the Aboriginal community.

The NSW Electoral Commission officially declared the outcome of the statewide election last Tuesday, with Ms Randall joined on the Land Council by new member, Ray Kelly, who represents the Sydney/Newcastle areas.

In her first nomination as North Coast representative, Ms Randall defeated incumbent North Coast member, Dallas Donnelly, and Tina Williams in the ballot.

“When I thought about running, I thought I would just have a go, because I knew that I was up against my cousin Tina Williams and Dallas Donnelly,” she said.

“After it was announced that I was the new North Coast Councillor I felt a lot of emotions, but I was mainly excited for the new challenge ahead.”

As a councillor for the North Coast, Ms Randall said she will represent 13 Local Aboriginal Land Councils where she has family: Baryulgil Square, Birrigan Gargle, Bogal, Casino-Boolangle, Grafton Ngerrie, Gugun Gudduba, Jali, Jana Ngalee, Jubullum, Muli Muli, Ngulingah, Tweed/Byron, and Yaegl.

Through her community involvement over the years, Ms Randall has been on boards including the Bulgarr Ngaru Medical Aboriginal Corporation, the Birrigan Gargle LALC, the Yaegl Elders Aboriginal Corporation and the Mudyala Aboriginal Corporation.

Ms Randall was also on the board of the Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council LALC for nine years and was the Birrigan Gargle LALCs chairperson for eight years, which she said provided her with invaluable knowledge on LALCs she intends to apply in her position as North Coast councillor.....

NSW Aboriginal Land Council claim on old Berrima Gaol refused by High Court

Read the full summary here.

The article rumoured to have seen an indigenous magazine slated for closure

Does publication of the article below see NSW Aboriginal Land Council's Tracker Magazine closing under pressure from NSW Indigenous Affairs Minister Victor Dominello?

VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE: How black Australia rejected Tony Abbott

BY TRACKER, NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

NATIONAL: Tony Abbott is the new ‘Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs’. One problem: no-one bothered to ask Aboriginal people if they even wanted him. It turns out they didn’t, if the most in-depth analysis of Aboriginal voting intentions ever staged is anything to go by. CHRIS GRAHAM explains.

Somewhere in Wreck Bay – a tiny Aboriginal community on the NSW South Coast – a blackfella is hiding a deep, dark secret.

He or she voted Liberal at the recent federal election. I’m not kidding.

Wreck Bay is in the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, an electorate which, since 1972, has always fallen to whichever party forms government.

2013 was no exception – it was held by Labor’s Mike Kelly, a rising star in the ALP, but by the end of counting had fallen to the Coalition’s Peter Hendy, a virtual unknown.

Hendy certainly doesn’t have the Wreck Bay community to thank for his success.

An analysis of the results from the community reveals that of the 62 votes cast, all of them bar one were directed towards Labor.

That stunning statistic earns Wreck Bay the distinction of the highest anti-Coalition vote of any Aboriginal community in the nation, at 98 percent.

But Wreck Bay was by no means alone in its strong anti-Coalition stance. Tracker magazine analysed 23,515 votes from voting booths in 277 communities around the country.

We looked at communities which were ‘identifiably Aboriginal’ – towns with Aboriginal populations higher than 80 percent.

Wilcannia in the far west of NSW, for example, fits this profile. Other communities include Toomelah, Murrin Bridge and Wreck Bay in NSW, Woorabinda and Cherbourg in Queensland, and a host of discrete Aboriginal communities across the Northern Territory which have populations close to 100 percent Aboriginal.

The analysis reveals that all but seven of the 65 booths returned more than 50 percent against the Coalition.

Nationally, 64 percent of Aboriginal electors directed their vote – either before or after preferences – to the Labor Party. But even that figure is likely to be understated.

There’s no way to discern the black vote from booths in, for example, metropolitan Sydney, where anecdotally at least, the anti-Coalition vote is even higher.

SEE OVER PAGE.

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Don't blame Dallas - former north coast rep on NSW Aboriginal Land Council wants nothing to do with petroleum exploration

Letter to the Editor, The Northern Star

Local decisions

I was the elected councillor representing the North Coast Region on the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) from December 2010 to August 2011.

It has been mentioned to me that people are insinuating that I, as a councillor, was party to the NSWALC decision to apply for the petroleum exploration licences in the North Coast. I deny this.

In my time as councillor it was never mentioned about exploration licences on the North Coast.

My belief is that such decisions should come from the local level and not from the top down.

I personally find it repulsive that NSWALC made the decision they did without having the decency to talk with local Aboriginal land councils and other indigenous stakeholders. Shame on them.

Big brother has again returned to Aboriginal affairs.

I do not have an issue with mining where it is culturally and environmentally okay. The beautiful North Coast is not the place to pillage.

Dallas Donnelly, Grafton

Source: Letters, The Northern Star, 30/3/12