THE Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has sided with Anthony Mundine on his views of Aboriginal identity and renewed an attack on a fellow Tasmanian Aboriginal group for falsely claiming ancestry.
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TAC legal director Michael Mansell yesterday said the group had accepted the boxer's comments on Tasmanian Aborigines in the past week that the state's population had been "wiped out", just two days after deriding them as racist.
On Thursday at a Sydney media conference to promote a long-awaited rematch with Tasmanian boxer Daniel Geale, Mundine questioned the Aboriginality of his opponent.
Mr Mansell said Mundine had expressed concerns about people using Aboriginal ancestry for their own advantage, despite "socially and culturally living the life of a white person".
He then attacked the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation, questioning its Aboriginality, and called for Aboriginal heritage to be determined by Aboriginal people themselves, not government bureaucracy.
"There are many white Tasmanians who claim to be Aboriginal because of rumour or because they 'feel different'," Mr Mansell said.
"The processes for authenticating the real from the fanciful are so loose that, in reality, anyone can legally claim to be indigenous and be accepted by the federal departments without question.
"The group that set up and now runs Circular Head corporation have no Aboriginal ancestry at all. The system does not require them to find an Aboriginal ancestor, and if it did there would be none to find.
"The problem is not limited to Circular Head."
Mr Mansell's claims against the Circular Head Aboriginal community's ancestry extend back over a decade.
Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation chairman Graeme Heald said Mr Mansell's comments had potentially offended more than 2000 Circular Head people who identified as Aboriginal.
"We're very upset that they've brought us into it - who gives him the right to say who is Tasmanian Aboriginal and who is not?" Mr Heald said. "He says he speaks for Tasmanian Aboriginals but he does not speak for me. If you don't link into one of the families of TAC, they say you're not Aboriginal.
"They talk about the hurt that happened 200 years ago - what about the hurt that they've caused other Tasmanian Aboriginal groups by questioning their Aboriginality?"
