Geoff Clark (born 1952)[1] is an Australian Aboriginal politician and activist. Clark led the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) until it was effectively disbanded in 2004.
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Geoff Clark was raised by his grandmother, Alice,[1] in an Aboriginal community in western Victoria. He was a keen boxer, boxing in Jimmy Sharman's tent when it came to Warrnambool.[1] At age 20 he moved to Western Australia and until he was 26 he worked as a builder's labourer and as a gardener and played football for WAFL clubs Claremont and Subiaco. Geoff also represented Norwood in the SANFL for 2 games in 1978.
In 1979 he became the administrator for the Framlingham Aboriginal Community Trust.[1] He co-founded the Aboriginal Provisional Government in 1983 and in the same year visited Manuel Noriega, the then dictator of Panama. 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 (ATSIC) board,[1] as the Native Title spokesman. In December 1999 he became the first chairperson of ATSIC to be elected to that position.[1] He served two terms in this position before the organisation was disbanded in 2003. 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. The suspension was later overruled in court on the basis of illegality. It was alleged that he attempted to sell off government property under the control of ATSIC, for the benefit of ATSIC, which eventually led to the Australian National Audit Office declaring the organisation in breach of the Australian constitution. In 2004, after being pre-empted by the Labor opposition, the Liberal government began proceedings to abolish ATSIC.[1]
In 2000 Clark was charged with the 1981 rape of his cousin, Joanne McGuinness, but a magistrate found there was insufficient evidence to bring the case to trial.[2]
In 2001, press reports in The Age claimed that Clark was responsible for four rapes that took place in the 1970s and 1980s.[1] McGuiness and Carol Stingel launched separate civil cases against Clark in 2002.[3] Both alleged that he raped four women including McGuiness and Stingel. In 2003 further criminal charges of rape were filed by the Victoria Police but the charges were dismissed due to discrepancies in the evidence.
In 2003 it emerged that ATSIC had agreed to partially fund Clark's legal defence relating to a pub brawl where he was present.[1] The commission's offer was later revoked. Nineteen charges were initially filed, with all but 'riotous behavior' and 'obstructing police' eventually dropped. Clark was convicted on both in his first trial, with the riotous behavior charge later dismissed on appeal.[4][5]
In January 2007 a County Court of Victoria civil jury found that he had led two pack rapes in 1971.[1] The victim, Carol Anne Stingel, suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, was awarded $20,000 in compensatory damages and around $71,000 to cover legal costs.[6] No punitive damages were awarded.[2] In response to the question of whether it was "the lowest point in his life",[7] Clark sarcastically described the ruling as "the lowest point in the history of this country".
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.[8] In December 2007 he lost his appeal against the damages awarded against him.[9]
In September 2011, Clark was one of the successful complainants in a racial discrimination case involving Herald Sun journalist Andrew Bolt, 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.[10]