Geoff Clark

Geoff Clark (born 1 August 1952) is an Australian Aboriginal politician and activist. Clark led the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) from 1999 until it was disbanded in 2004.

Early life Clark was born on 1 August 1952 and raised by his grandmother, Alice,

He was a keen boxer, boxing in Jimmy Sharman's tent when it came to Warrnambool.

Political career In 1979, Clark became the administrator for the Framlingham Aboriginal Community Trust.

In 2001, press reports in The Age claimed that Clark was responsible for four rapes that took place in the 1970s and 1980s.

In 2003, it emerged that ATSIC had agreed to allocate $45,000 to fund Clark's legal defence relating to a pub brawl at which he was present.

In January 2007, a County Court civil jury found that Clark had led two pack rapes in 1971.

In February 2007, Clark appealed against the findings of the jury in the Stingel matter. His notice of appeal alleged the verdict was "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. Although Clark declared bankruptcy 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 columnist 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. In Eatock v Bolt, the Federal Court of Australia held that two articles written by Bolt and published in the Herald Sun had contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.

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.

In September 2024, after three lengthy County Court trials, Clarke was found guilty of stealing almost $1m from three indigenous organisations over 15 years, taking illegal royalties from eel fishermen, and lying in affidavits. A fourth charge, of stealing from the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, was dropped. He was convicted to six years and 2 months behind bars.