Geoff Clark (born August 1952) is an Australian Aboriginal politician and activist. Clark led the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) from 1999 until it was disbanded in 2004.
Clark was born in August 1952 and raised by his grandmother, Alice, [1] in an Aboriginal community in western Victoria. [1]
He was a keen boxer, boxing in Jimmy Sharman's tent when it came to Warrnambool. [1] Aged 20, Clark moved to Western Australia and, until he was 26 worked as a builder's labourer and gardener. He also played Australian rules football for West Australian Football League (WAFL) clubs Claremont and Subiaco. Clark also represented Norwood Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) for three games in 1978. [2]
In 1979, Clark became the administrator for the Framlingham Aboriginal Community Trust. [1] He co-founded the Aboriginal Provisional Government in 1983. Between 1983 and 1996, he was active locally and internationally in indigenous affairs.
In December 1996, Clark was elected to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) board [1] as the native title spokesman. In December 1999, he became the first chairperson of ATSIC to be elected to that position. [1] He served two terms in that position before the organisation was disbanded in 2004. Clark's tenure was increasingly overshadowed by allegations of misconduct and ongoing criminal proceedings against him.
In August 2003, Clark was suspended as ATSIC chairperson by the Indigenous Affairs Minister, Amanda Vanstone. The suspension was later overturned in court. In 2004, the Howard government abolished ATSIC. [1]
In 2000, Clark was charged with the 1981 rape of his cousin, Joanne McGuinness, but a magistrate found there was insufficient evidence to bring the case to trial. [3]
In 2001, press reports in The Age claimed that Clark was responsible for four rapes that took place in the 1970s and 1980s. [1] In 2002, McGuiness and Carol Stingel launched separate civil cases against him. [4]
In 2003, it emerged that ATSIC had agreed to allocate $45,000 to fund Clark's legal defence relating to a pub brawl at which he was present. [1] Nineteen charges were initially filed, with all but "riotous behaviour" and "obstructing police" being eventually dropped. Clark was convicted on both at his first trial, with the riotous behaviour charge later dismissed on appeal. [5] [6]
In January 2007, a County Court civil jury found that Glark had led two pack rapes in 1971. [1] The victim, Carol Anne Stingel, who suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, was awarded $20,000 in compensatory damages and around $71,000 to cover legal costs. [7]
In February 2007, Clark appealed against the findings of the jury in the Stingel matter. His notice of appeal alleged the verdict was "perverse", that the trial judge misdirected the jury regarding failures to call corroborative witnesses on the part of the complainant, that the trial judge erred in ruling against the admission of certain evidence, and that the fairness of the trial process had been compromised by pre-trial publicity. [8] In December 2007 he lost his appeal against the damages awarded against him. [9] Clark never paid the $20,000 compensation to Stingel and, as of 2013, owed more than $300,000 to her lawyers. Although Clark declared bankruptcy in 2009, which was extended by five years in June 2012, he made an unsuccessful $1.25 million bid in June 2013 for a hotel in Warrnambool. [10]
In September 2011, Clark was one of the successful complainants in a racial discrimination case involving Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt who, in a 2009 article, claimed that Clark had used his "part Aboriginal ethnicity" to gain social benefits. Clark said he took part in the action because of the general tone of Bolt's writing. [11] [ dead link ] In Eatock v Bolt , the Federal Court of Australia held that two articles written by Bolt and published in The Herald Sun had contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 . [12]
In August 2021, Clark was ordered to stand trial relating to the alleged misappropriation of about $2 million belonging to the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust over a period of around 30 years, along with his wife Trudy and son Jeremy. [13]
In September 2024, after three lengthy County Court trials, Clarke was found guilty of stealing from three indigenous organisations over 15 years, taking illegal royalties from eel fishermen, and lying in affidavits. A fourth charge, of stealing from the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, was dropped. [14]
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) (1990–2005) was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives, established under the Hawke government in 1990. A number of Indigenous programs and organisations fell under the overall umbrella of ATSIC.
Andrew Bolt is an Australian conservative social and political commentator. He has worked at the News Corp-owned newspaper company The Herald and Weekly Times (HWT) for many years, for both The Herald and its successor, the Herald Sun. His current roles include blogger and columnist at the Herald Sun and host of television show The Bolt Report each weeknight. In Australia, Bolt is a controversial public figure, who has frequently been accused of abrasive demeanour, racist views and inappropriate remarks on various political and social issues.
The Racial Discrimination Act 1975(Cth) is an Act of the Australian Parliament, which was enacted on 11 June 1975 and passed by the Whitlam government. The Act makes racial discrimination in certain contexts unlawful in Australia, and also overrides state and territory legislation to the extent of any inconsistency.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services was part of the now disbanded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).
Framlingham is a rural township located by the Hopkins River in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north-east of the coastal city of Warrnambool. In the 2016 census, the township had a population of 158.
A rape shield law is a law that limits the ability to introduce evidence about the past sexual activity of a complainant in a sexual assault trial, or that limits cross-examination of complainants about their past sexual behaviour in sexual assault cases. The term also refers to a law that prohibits the publication of the identity of a complainant in a sexual assault case.
The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of southwestern Victoria. They are the traditional owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. Their land includes much of the Budj Bim heritage areas. The Kerrup Jmara are a clan of the Gunditjmara, whose traditional lands are around Lake Condah. The Koroitgundidj are another clan group, whose lands are around Tower Hill.
Ray 'Sugar Ray' Robinson was an Australian man who served as Deputy Chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission from 1996 to 2003.
Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson is an Australian politician.
Arthur Allan Thomas is a New Zealand man who was granted a Royal Pardon and compensation after being wrongfully convicted of the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in June 1970. Thomas was married and farming a property in the Pukekawa district, south of Auckland before the case. Following the revelation that the crucial evidence against him had been faked, Thomas was pardoned in 1979 and awarded NZ$950,000 in compensation for his 9 years in prison and loss of earnings.
Michael Alexander Mansell is a Tasmanian Aboriginal (Palawa) activist and lawyer who has campaigned for social, political and legal changes.
The Girai wurrung, also spelt Kirrae Wuurong and Kirrae Whurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people who traditionally occupied the territory between Mount Emu Creek and the Hopkins River up to Mount Hamilton, and the Western Otways from the Gellibrand River to the Hopkins River. The historian Ian D. Clark has reclassified much of the material regarding them in Norman Tindale's compendium under the Djargurd Wurrung, a term reflecting the assumed pre-eminence of one of their clans, the Jacoort/Djargurd.
The Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG) is an Indigenous Australian independence movement in Australia.
R v Evans and McDonald was the prosecution of two footballers, Ched Evans and Clayton McDonald, who were accused of the rape of a woman. On 20 April 2012, Evans was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. McDonald was acquitted. Several people were later fined after naming the woman on Twitter and other social media websites.
Leeanne Margaret Enoch is an Australian politician currently serving as the Queensland Minister for Treaty, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Minister for Communities and Minister for the Arts. She has also served as the Labor Party member for Algester in the Queensland Legislative Assembly since 2015.
Alex Hepburn is a former cricketer from Australia and convicted sex offender, who last played for Worcestershire County Cricket Club in England. In April 2019, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for the rape of a sleeping woman as part of a WhatsApp-based "sexual conquest game". He was imprisoned at HM Prison Littlehey until October 2021.
June Patricia "Pat" Eatock was an Australian indigenous activist and academic.
Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, deals with offensive behaviour "because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin" in Australia. It is a section of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, which was passed by the Australian Parliament during the term of the Whitlam government and makes racial discrimination unlawful in Australia. Section 18C was added by the Keating government in 1995. The Section has been controversial and subject to much debate.
Eatock v Bolt was a 2011 decision of the Federal Court of Australia which held that two articles written by columnist and commentator Andrew Bolt and published in The Herald Sun newspaper had contravened section 18C, of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) (RDA). The case was controversial and instigated community debate about freedom of speech.
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is a professional Australian rules footballer with the Western Bulldogs in the Australian Football League (AFL).