Charles Lynch wants to talk about misinformation. So do I.

If a public official accuses someone of spreading misinformation, the minimum standard is specificity. Name the claim. Show the correction. Produce the evidence. Since August 2023, the NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) Councillor for the Northern Region has not met that standard once.

This week, NSWALC shared a video of Charles Lynch speaking with ABC Radio Sydney about what he described as misinformation being spread by the NSW Government over the Crown Lands Management Amendment (Statutory Review) Bill 2026. The Bill – which NSWALC says would undermine the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 (ALRA) – was deferred by Lands Minister Steve Kamper on 24 March to allow further consultation.

I also noticed Lynch viewing my LinkedIn profile earlier this week. That is not unusual – he checks in periodically… but what is unusual is that it has never once resulted in a message, a correction, or even a “how are you going, Dean.” In my experience, a Lynch profile visit tends to precede institutional action, not conversation.

That claim about government misinformation would carry more weight if Lynch had ever identified the misinformation he says I spread.

This is not about whether the Crown Lands concerns are valid. It is about a simpler accountability test: when an elected representative accuses a constituent of spreading “irresponsible and incorrect information” they should be able to point to the specific claim that was wrong and provide the correction. That matters for anyone watching how institutional Aboriginal leadership handles scrutiny – because the pattern applies far beyond one dispute.

Since August 2023, Lynch has not identified a single factual error in anything I have published.

The allegation with no particulars

In August 2023, I submitted a Government Information (Public Access) Act request – known as a GIPA request – to NSWALC about Lynch’s conduct since his election in 2015. Standard transparency for any elected official.

Instead of hearing back from NSWALC’s Governance Officer, I received a direct letter from Lynch on official NSWALC letterhead, dated 24 August 2023, accusing me of spreading “irresponsible and incorrect information” and “misrepresenting information/footage.” The letter is on file.

No specific claim was identified. No correction was offered. No evidence was attached.

In the same letter, Lynch described NSWALC as “the largest member-based Aboriginal organisation in NSW.” NSWALC publicly uses similar language to describe the wider Land Rights network: its FAQ says NSWALC is a council of nine elected Councillors that works with 121 Local Aboriginal Land Councils (LALCs) and recent NSWALC publications describe that network as having more than 29,000 to 30,000 members. Strictly speaking, however, the statutory council itself consists of one elected Councillor for each of nine regions under section 120 of the ALRA – meaning the council has only nine members.

The distinction matters because the 2019 election data shows a gap between network size and electoral participation. NSWALC’s 2018-19 annual report referred to 120 LALCs and about 25,000 members, while the NSW Electoral Commission recorded 17,412 enrolled electors across nine regions and 15,426 electors on the rolls for the eight contested regions. The turnout across those contested regions was roughly 16% of the network NSWALC claims to represent. When an institution uses the larger number for public claims but governs on the basis of a fraction of that number actually voting, the gap between representation and reality is worth naming.

I lodged a formal complaint with the Office of the Registrar under the ALRA, citing potential breaches of Clauses 2(1), 2(4), 2(5) and 2(6) of the NSWALC Code of Conduct in Schedule 4 of the Aboriginal Land Rights Regulation 2020. I also wrote to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty, David Harris MP, requesting an investigation. Both letters are on file.

The then Interim Registrar, Nicole Courtman, decided not to investigate. In a letter dated 27 September 2023, her reasoning was that Lynch’s membership statement was “intended to refer to” NSWALC being a representative body. In her own words, the Registrar considers each complaint on its own merits – meaning a different Registrar, applying the same test to the same facts, could reach a different conclusion.

From complaint to legal threat

In October 2024, according to correspondence on file, NSWALC’s General Counsel Daniel Byers sent me a formal defamation concerns notice demanding I delete my governance articles and publicly apologise within 28 days.

I responded by lodging a complaint with the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

As of this writing, NSWALC has not addressed the substance of a single governance question I have raised since August 2023. Not one.

The violence question Lynch will not answer

In May 2025, Wade Natty – who has ties to the Gunnedah area, within the Northern Region that Lynch represents – made direct threats against me online, including violent language that I documented and published on Indigenous News Australia on 12 May 2025.

On 20 July 2025, I sent Lynch a formal request for comment as a journalist for the Community News Hub Aboriginal Corporation. In a letter on file, I asked him to confirm or deny his role in internal complaints against me at NSWALC, address whether those complaints may have escalated into threats of legal action and clarify his relationship with Natty. I gave him until 1 August 2025 to respond.

He did not respond.

On 17 September 2025, the Red Chief LALC Facebook page posted a photograph of Lynch and Natty together at an event. This was after the documented threats, after the formal request for comment, and after the silence…

Why specificity matters

When Lynch appears on ABC Radio to warn about government misinformation, I am watching the pattern – not the performance.

In my experience, the response from NSWALC to governance questions has followed a consistent sequence: vague allegations first, silence second, legal threats third. The substance of the questions raised – about membership claims, spending priorities, accountability gaps, and the conduct of elected representatives – has never been addressed on the record.

I am not dismissing the Crown Lands Bill concerns outright. The Bill raised real questions about Aboriginal land rights, serious enough that the Law Society of NSW, NSWALC and the Metropolitan LALC all opposed it before the government deferred it on 24 March. I have submitted multiple GIPA requests myself to test whether the “attack by stealth” framing holds up, or whether NSWALC is leveraging the situation to deflect from its own governance record.

But the Councillor now positioning himself as a watchdog on government misinformation is the same Councillor who:

• accused me of spreading misinformation in a letter dated 24 August 2023 – without identifying a single factual error…
• represents an institution whose General Counsel sent me a defamation notice for raising governance questions, rather than answering them…
• appeared publicly with someone who threatened me – after being formally asked about that relationship and declining to respond…
• served as Northern Region representative during the period when Red Chief LALC was placed under administration – the first such appointment in the region in years.

What transparency would look like

If Lynch has evidence that anything I have published is factually wrong, he can say so publicly – specifically and on the record. Not through vague letters on NSWALC letterhead. Not through lawyers.

If NSWALC genuinely wants to talk about misinformation, it can start by releasing the GIPA documents I have requested about its own governance, spending and land dealings – instead of charging community members for access to information about how their reparations are managed.

And if Lynch wants credibility on truth-telling, he might start by answering the question he has been avoiding since August 2023.

What, specifically, did I get wrong?