Registrar’s letter to the editor of the National Indigenous Times

The Registrar wrote the editor of the National Indigenous Times on 16 January 2026 regarding inaccuracies in its reporting about ORIC activities in relation to corporations that are part of the South West Native Title Settlement.

The full text of her letter is below. 

Dear Editor,

Recent reporting by the National Indigenous Times contains a number of apparent misrepresentations, expressed and inferred, and inaccuracies as to ORIC’s role and activities in relation to the 7 corporations that are part of the South West Native Title Settlement (‘Noongar Settlement’).

I refer to Ballardong CEO departs following member unrest of 14 January 2026 and Exclusive: Noongar Settlement claimants secretly meet ORIC over rule books of 15 January 2026.

It is not my usual practice to respond to articles referencing ORIC’s activities. After considering the number of inaccuracies that have now been published, and the potential impact those inaccuracies may have on the subject corporations and their members, I consider it important to correct the record.

In relation to your article Exclusive: Noongar Settlement claimants secretly meet ORIC over rule books of 15 January 2026

The headline ‘Noongar Settlement claimants secretly meet ORIC over rule books’ incorrectly infers a lack of transparency and openness about the process. 
The notice of the Registrar Meeting of Interested Persons was published in each corporation’s listing in the public Register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations. In order to balance privacy obligations with transparency, the Registrar does not publish attendees and locations of Registrar Meetings of Interested Parties. The location of meetings is only relevant to those attending. The existence of each meeting has been published in accordance with the requirements of the CATSI Act.

Any references to secrecy should be removed as it is inaccurate and incorrect.  Steps should also be taken to address the URL and search engine search results.

You have published that The Indigenous Business Review understands the probe by Indigenous corporation watchdog Office of the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations (ORIC) into the organisations — claimants to the historic $1.3 billion South West Native Title settlement in 2021 between the Noongar people and Western Australian Government — is focused on internal governance. 

This assertion misrepresents ORIC’s activities. A reference to ‘probe’ implies an investigation. The article, in the same sentence, then refers to the ‘$1.3 billion settlement’ and that the ‘probe’ is based on internal governance. I am concerned that the NIT is inferring that ORIC is concerned by or is investigating how the corporations are managing their settlement funds. This does not represent with any accuracy the nature of ORIC’s engagement with the 7 corporations. ORIC has published the nature of the engagement on the Public Register of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations, freely accessible to the public, limiting the enquiries to matters relating to the corporations’ rule books (constitutions).

For clarity, ORIC is undertaking a review of the corporations’ rule books. It is not undertaking a review or investigation of the corporations’ internal governance. A review of a corporation’s rule book is not unusual. ORIC regularly conducts reviews of corporations’ rule books and encourages corporations to engage with my office for complex corporations to ensure compliance with the CATSI Act and that the rules are modern, workable and suit the corporation’s unique circumstances. Regular reviews of a corporation’s governing documents are part of ORIC’s healthy corporation checklist.

This paragraph should be corrected or removed.

You have published that representatives and members of some corporations are required to attend relevant governance workshops.

This is not correct. ORIC continues to meet individually with corporations to discuss the rule books. ORIC is working collaboratively with the corporations to amend certain rules to ensure they are compliant with the CATSI Act and, more importantly, workable for the corporation’s own context.

Such references should be deleted.

The implication that representatives of the Western Australian Government were at the meeting with ORIC and the corporations is factually incorrect and misleading. 

I confirm that representatives from the Western Australian Government were not at the meeting with the corporations. This misunderstands the role of the Registrar, ORIC’s engagement with corporations and the nature of the meeting. ORIC met with representatives separately to discuss our intention to review the rule books and to discuss the scope and parameter of this work. This is set out in the notices published on the public register.

It is appropriate for my office to have consulted the relevant representatives of the Western Australian Government given the terms set out in the Settlement impacting the rule books. The Settlement is publicly available. Consultation with the appropriate government representatives is uncontroversial, but your article is silent on any such context, which risks a reader forming incorrect inferences.

The fact that ORIC has engaged with the corporations and separately with the government officials should be expressed and corrected within your publication.

The publication of a statement expressing that redaction of names, the time and location of a meeting is ‘uncommon on notices of the Federal body’s public register’ is wrong and should be removed. 
The publication of this statement is misleading. The CATSI Regulations require publication of such notices to provide transparency that such meetings have been called. The details of the meeting are appropriately confidential to the subject attendees and may be disclosed to the Minister. There is no basis to infer any mischief in the application of appropriate redactions, based on the statutory requirements applicable to ORIC and privacy requirements owed to each participant. These are considerations applied to all such meetings and are not unique to the subject meetings published in the article.

This reference should be removed from the published article on the basis it is factually incorrect.

With regard to your article ‘Ballardong CEO departs following member unrest’ of 14 January 2026

Referring to ‘an ongoing federal governance review’ misrepresents the nature of the engagement and is misleading. 

As ORIC has published on its public register, my office is reviewing a small number of rules in the rule books of these 7 corporations. It is not a review of the overall governance of the corporations as the publication inaccurately infers.

Any reference to ‘investigation’ or ‘ongoing federal governance review’ should be deleted.

The statement that ORIC issued warning letters about non-compliance in relation to the Noongar Settlement in October is wrong. 

As the article later correctly quotes ORIC, the Registrar does not have the power to review a corporation’s compliance with non-CATSI Act arrangements – such as the Noongar Settlement – it has entered into. As the NIT correctly stated in its 15 January article, I wrote to the corporations in October 2025 to advise that some aspects of their rule books did not meet the requirements of the CATSI Act. Namely that some rules were not workable. ORIC has not issued a ‘warning’ letter, which implies that each of the subject corporations have resisted working with ORIC in reviewing their rule books.

References to ’warning’ letters should be deleted from publication.

You have published that ORIC investigated internal governance allegations at Ballardong Aboriginal Corporation. 

It is not my usual practice to make any comment on the existence or not of any ORIC investigation. In this case, the NIT has now published 2 articles expressing untrue and factually inaccurate matters requiring me to correct the public record. The NIT has referenced such investigation to support an inference of ORIC’s supposed ’internal governance review’.

Any reference to an ORIC investigation into the Ballardong Aboriginal Corporation in any publication from the NIT should be removed.

The statement that ‘outgoing Ballardong directors were immediately re-elected in October following their two-year terms expiring’ incorrectly implies that the elections are not in accordance with the CATSI Act. 

The CATSI Act and a corporation’s rule book allow for reappointments (by members) of directors. Directors can be re-elected to serve further terms with each term no more than 2 years unless the corporation has an exemption from the Registrar. Appointments and reappointments made by members are a critical right belonging only to the members. The power to re-appoint is not unusual for CATSI corporations, nor is it unusual for members to exercise that right.

The article should be corrected to simply express that Ballardong directors were re-elected by the members.

Each of the factually inaccurate and activities that have been misrepresented in this article should be corrected. Following corrections, I request that you include an editor’s note on each article to note that it has been edited in response to these concerns.

I will also publish this email in full on oric.gov.au.

Regards,
Tricia Stroud
Registrar of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporations