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Saturday 4 October 2003, Media Release

NSWALC REJECTS CLAIMS

The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council totally rejects claims made in a newspaper article in today's Sydney Morning Herald by self-appointed ALP "crusader" Warren Mundine.

Mr Mundine ought to stop using NSWALC as a vehicle to further his personal political ambitions.

The newspaper report claims Mr Mundine will use today's ALP state conference in Sydney to call on the State Government to sack the duly elected office bearers in NSWALC and replace them with a Government appointed administrator.

He claims all we have done since the public release of a recent investigator's report into NSWALC is to reject its criticisms and issue propaganda instead of endorsing the report.

This is absurd.

NSWALC has issued a number of public statements since the tabling of the report in the State Parliament on September 16.

It has said in every one of those statements that it will accept much of the criticism in the investigator's report.

It has also said the report contains serious flaws which we will be pointing out to the Government when we table our formal response to the report on October 14.

We have also stated that NSWALC has now put in place a range of good governance policies and procedures and provided written assurances to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Dr. Andrew Refshauge, which should obviate the need for further Government intervention.

I'd hardly describe the formulation and adoption of these policies and our written assurances to the Minister as propaganda.

We will be requesting our response be tabled in the State Parliament.

I'd call on all delegates to the ALP state conference to suspend their judgement on Mr Mundine's reported statements today until they can examine our detailed formal response

I'm sure once they have all the facts in front of them they will be able to put his remarks today in their proper context.

NSWALC office bearers and staff have had a number of lengthy conversations with Mr Mundine in recent days.

In one of those conversations, which occurred late yesterday, our new CEO, William Johnstone, rejected Mr Mundine's suggestion to him that we should not be too critical of the investigator's report.

Mr Johnstone carefully explained why NSWALC could not do so. Those reasons will be come clear when we issue our formal response.

In another conversation Mr Mundine told me NSWALC had to do a "song and dance routine," to prove to him that we should not be sacked.

It should be noted we have offered Mr Mundine and the Sydney Morning Herald a detailed briefing on our formal response to the investigator's report at an appropriate time.

Readers of the Sydney Morning Herald should also be aware Mr. Mundine recently applied for the job of CEO of this organisation. He was unsuccessful.

I do not intend to make any comment on statements made in today's article by Councillor Veronica Graf. I will reserve those comments for a meeting of NSWALC late next week.

NSWALC had not intended to mount a defence of this organisation through the media and sees no point in engaging in a public slanging match.

However we will not be stood over by Mr Mundine and cannot allow his public statements to go unanswered.

Les Trindall
Chairperson