Collapse of Indigenous land council following fraud allegations raises spectre of delays

Development projects across a large part of Victoria are facing delays of up to five months after the collapse of an Indigenous land council that was investigated over fraud allegations.

The Bunurong Land Council was placed into administration in September after an investigation by this masthead in May reported allegations of fraud totalling more than $150,000 and of mismanagement and corruption.

Daniel Turnbull (left) and Robert Ogden, former leaders of the Bunurong Land Council.

The council is responsible for administering cultural heritage management plans in an area running from Melton in Melbourne’s west to the Mornington Peninsula and into Gippsland.

A request for a cultural heritage management plan made last week to the council received a response saying that the next available date for cultural heritage management plan fieldwork, compliance work or meetings was in mid-April.

The council received registered Aboriginal party status in 2017 under Victorian legislation. Registered Aboriginal parties are responsible for managing Aboriginal cultural heritage matters in their appointed areas. Developers and governments are required to consult them.

The legally mandated cultural heritage management plans are required when a “high impact” activity is planned in an area of cultural heritage sensitivity, which includes registered Aboriginal cultural heritage places as well as landforms and land categories generally regarded as more likely to contain Aboriginal cultural heritage.

Planning permits, licences and work authorities cannot be issued unless a cultural heritage management plan has been created.

The 300-plus members of the Bunurong Land Council are largely descendants of a small group of Bunurong/Boon Wurrung women kidnapped by sealers in 1833. Their descendants were dispersed across Australia as part of a violent early colonial displacement.

Tricia Stroud, the registrar of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations, said in a statement last month that the Bunurong Land Council was put into administration after an examination of the council’s books.

“The examination identified serious concerns with respect to the standard of corporate governance of the corporation,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the registrar said the council’s responsibilities and operations as a registered Aboriginal party continued “business as usual” whether a special administrator was in place or not.

The key allegation from this masthead’s report in May was that former Bunurong heritage manager Robert Ogden and former general manager Dan Turnbull took fees of up to $5000 a week they should not have received over a one-year period up to February 2018.

The fees were for attending informal meetings with property developers, archaeologists and local councils seeking advice from the land council on cultural heritage. Ogden and Turnbull have both strongly denied the allegations.

“All the evidence is I’ve done nothing outside of my contract,” Ogden was reported in May as saying. “It’s purely political by the new board … it’s personal conflicts relating to family issues.”

Turnbull has also said he did nothing wrong. “Every payment we received was documented and was added to our contract when we received them, so it’s all completely legitimate. That’s the truth.”

The council areas affected by possible project delays include Wyndham, Melton, Casey, Bayside, Hobsons Bay, Mornington, Frankston, Cardinia, Kingston, Glen Eira, Port Phillip, Bass Coast, South Gippsland and Baw Baw.

A spokeswoman for Kingston said the council was working on more than 15 projects that required cultural heritage management plans, but it was not aware of any impacts to the projects caused by the collapse of the Bunurong Land Council.

A spokeswoman for Mornington Peninsula Shire also said she was unaware of any direct impact on projects as a result of the administration.

“Any delays with the cultural heritage management plan process are connected to industry-wide challenges, specifically the high demand for resources such as archaeologists, which is surpassing the available capacity,” she said.

Opposition planning spokesman James Newbury said the delays showed the Allan government was asleep at the wheel.

“We cannot have our economy put at risk because … projects across a swath of Victoria are going to be delayed for at least six months,” he said. “The Labor government have lost control of Victoria’s planning system.”

The state government and the Bunurong Land Council have been contacted for comment.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.

Key points

The Bunurong Land Council is responsible for administering cultural heritage management plans in an area which covers a large part of the state spanning from Melton in Melbourne’s west, across the Mornington Peninsula and into Gippsland.

The council was placed into administration in September following an investigation by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald of an alleged fraud totalling more than $150,000 and allegations of mismanagement and corruption.

New projects are facing a delay of five months for a cultural heritage management plan following the collapse of the land council.