Geoff Clark (born August 1952)
is an
Australian Aboriginal
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
politician and activist. Clark led the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
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 ...
(ATSIC) from 1999 until it was effectively disbanded in 2004.
Personal
Clark was raised by his grandmother, Alice,
in an Aboriginal community in western
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
. He was a keen
boxer Boxer most commonly refers to:
* Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing
*Boxer (dog), a breed of dog
Boxer or boxers may also refer to:
Animal kingdom
* Boxer crab
* Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans
* Boxer snipe ee ...
, boxing in
Jimmy Sharman
James Sharman (20 June 1887 – 18 November 1965) was an Australian boxing troupe and entertainment impresario. His son also worked with him and took over for his father in 1955 after playing as a professional rugby league footballer.
Bio ...
's tent when it came to
Warrnambool
Warrnambool ( Maar: ''Peetoop'' or ''Wheringkernitch'' or ''Warrnambool'') is a city on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Warrnambool had a population of 35,743. Situated on the Princes Highway, Warrnambool (Al ...
.
At age 20 Clark moved to
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
and until he was 26 he worked as a
builder's labourer
A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...
and as a
gardener
A gardener is someone who practices gardening, either professionally or as a hobby.
Description
A gardener is any person involved in gardening, arguably the oldest occupation, from the hobbyist in a residential garden, the home-owner suppleme ...
; he also played
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
for
West Australian Football League
The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is an Australian rules football league based in Perth, Western Australia. The league currently consists of ten teams, which play each other in a 20-round season usually lasting from March to September, ...
(WAFL) clubs
Claremont and
Subiaco. Clark also represented
Norwood Football Club
Norwood Football Club, nicknamed the Redlegs, is an Australian rules football club competing in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) in the state of South Australia. Its home ground is Coopers Stadium (Norwood Oval), which is ...
in the
South Australian National Football League
The South Australian National Football League, or SANFL ( or ''S-A-N-F-L''), is an Australian rules football league based in the Australian state of South Australia. It is also the state's governing body for the sport.
Originally formed as the ...
(SANFL) for three games in 1978.
Political career
In 1979 Clark became the administrator for the
Framlingham
Framlingham is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Suffolk, England. Of Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon origin, it appears in the 1086 Domesday Book. The parish had a population of 3,342 at the 2011 Census and an estimated 4, ...
Aboriginal Community
Trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
.
He co-founded the
Aboriginal Provisional Government
The Aboriginal Provisional Government (APG) is an Indigenous Australian independence movement.
History
Earlier activity
The idea of an Aboriginal government was developed by some Aboriginal delegates of the Federation of Land Councils at its ...
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
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 ...
(ATSIC) board
as the
Native Title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...
spokesman. In December 1999 he became the first chairperson of ATSIC to be elected to that position.
Clark served two terms in this 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
Amanda Eloise Vanstone (née O'Brien; born 7 December 1952) is an Australian former politician and a former Ambassador to Italy. She was a Liberal Senator for South Australia from 1984 to 2007, and held several ministerial portfolios in the ...
. The suspension was later overruled in court. In 2004, the
Howard Government abolished ATSIC.
Court proceedings
In 2000 Clark was charged with the 1981
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
of his cousin, Joanne McGuinness, but a magistrate found there was insufficient evidence to bring the case to trial.
In 2001, press reports in ''
The Age
''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'' claimed that Clark was responsible for four rapes that took place in the 1970s and 1980s.
McGuiness and Carol Stingel launched separate civil cases against Clark in 2002.
In 2003 it emerged that ATSIC had agreed to allocate $45,000 to fund Clark's legal defence relating to a pub brawl where he was present.
Nineteen charges were initially filed, with all but 'riotous behaviour' and 'obstructing police' eventually dropped. Clark was convicted on both in his first trial, with the riotous behaviour charge later dismissed on appeal.
In January 2007 a
County Court of Victoria
The County Court of Victoria is the intermediate court in the Australian state of Victoria. It is equivalent to district courts in the other states.
The County Court is the principal trial court in the state, having a broad criminal and civi ...
civil jury found that he had led two
pack rapes in 1971.
The victim, Carol Anne Stingel, suffered from
post traumatic stress syndrome
Post or POST commonly refers to:
*Mail, the postal system, especially in Commonwealth of Nations countries
**An Post, the Irish national postal service
**Canada Post, Canadian postal service
**Deutsche Post, German postal service
** Iraqi Post, Ir ...
, was awarded $20,000 in
compensatory damages
At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
and around $71,000 to cover legal costs. No
punitive damages
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. ...
were awarded, although this is not unusual in Australian civil law.
In February 2007 Clark appealed the findings of the jury in the Stingel matter. His notice of appeal alleged the verdict to be '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. In December 2007 he lost his appeal against the damages awarded against him. Clark never paid the $20,000 compensation to Stingel and as of 2013 owed more than $300,000 to her lawyers.
["Clark in funds at property auction"]
by Stuart Rintoul, ''The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'', 22–23 June 2013 Although Clark declared
bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
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.
In September 2011, Clark was one of the successful complainants in a racial discrimination case involving ''
Herald Sun
The ''Herald Sun'' is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia, published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of the Murdoch owned News Corp. The ''Herald S ...
'' columnist
Andrew Bolt
Andrew Bolt (born 26 September 1959) is an Australian right-wing 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 success ...
, 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. In ''
Eatock v Bolt
''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 Di ...
'', the
Federal Court of Australia
The Federal Court of Australia is an Australian superior court of record which has jurisdiction to deal with most civil disputes governed by federal law (with the exception of family law matters), along with some summary (less serious) and indic ...
held that two articles written by Bolt and published in ''The Herald Sun'' had contravened
section 18C of the ''
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
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 als ...
''.
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.
See also
*
Ray Robinson (ATSIC)
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.
He resigned at a time when ATSIC was under enhanced scrutiny by the Howard Government, then ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark, Geoff
1952 births
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
Indigenous Australian politicians
Australian indigenous rights activists
Indigenous Australian players of Australian rules football
Australian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia)
Australian sportsperson-politicians
Claremont Football Club players
Subiaco Football Club players
Norwood Football Club players