Where the Joint Venture Began
COGS of Australia Foundation was founded on Wahlubal Country, in Drake Village, northern New South Wales. First Nations custodianship is not consultation. It is governance. It is locked into the structure from the first day.
Country and Place
Drake Village is a small community in the Tenterfield Shire of northern New South Wales. It sits on Wahlubal Country, within Bundjalung Nation. The community around Drake lives above ground that holds minerals, water, and cultural heritage. The value of what lies beneath flows, by law, to the Crown. The people above it are not legally entitled to a share.
COGS of Australia Foundation was founded here. Not in a Sydney boardroom or a Canberra office. In the Lunatic Hotel, Drake Village, on a Monday evening in April 2026.
That choice was deliberate. The Foundation started from the place most directly affected by the gap between what Australians believe and what the law says. It starts where the problem is real and immediate.
The Foundation acknowledges the Wahlubal people as the Traditional Owners of the Country on which it was founded. Their knowledge of Country, their relationship to what lies in the ground, and their connection to place are at the centre of this work, not at the edges.
The Drake Address
Delivered by Thomas Cunliffe, Caretaker Trustee. Lunatic Hotel, Drake Village NSW. Monday 20 April 2026. Wahlubal Country, Bundjalung Nation.
The following are key passages from the address as delivered. An audio recording is available: Listen to the address as delivered (MP3).
The lived reality
The address opened with the room itself:
Every person here knows what it means to live in a place that the rest of the world makes decisions about. Where companies lodge tenements over Country that your family has lived on for generations, and the first you hear about it is a notice in the mail. Where the value of the land beneath your feet flows somewhere else, and you are left to manage the consequences.
In-ground value
The address explained a shift that is already happening in global finance:
Gold's value lies in its existence. Not in where it is vaulted.
A gold deposit assessed and verified in the ground is real wealth today, without a single tonne being moved. Major global financial institutions are recognising that in-ground mineral resources are appreciating assets. A deposit with genuine community consent behind it is worth measurably more than one facing opposition. The act of leaving something intact, holding it, stewarding it, governing it, can itself preserve enormous value.
In 2020, Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old sacred site at Juukan Gorge (2021 Senate Inquiry report: A Way Forward — Final Report into the Destruction of Indigenous Heritage Sites at Juukan Gorge). Their CEO resigned. Their institutional investors (superannuation funds, pension boards) coordinated sanctions. Ernst & Young's annual Top 10 Business Risks and Opportunities for Mining and Metals has ranked social licence among the leading business risks in recent years. Community consent is not just a moral principle. It is a measurable, appreciating asset.
Wahlubal custodianship
The Wahlubal people have known something for tens of thousands of years that the financial world is only beginning to measure: that Country has value because it is intact. That custodianship is not a cost to be managed. It is the deepest form of stewardship that exists.
What this structure changes
Extraction is not forbidden. It is no longer the default. It must be justified, pass a social benefit test, and have genuine community consent.
The closing
What belongs to the life of the nation should carry the voice of the nation.
The Jubullum Local Aboriginal Land Council Partnership
The Jubullum Local Aboriginal Land Council (JLALC) was invited to become the Foundation's primary First Nations governance partner. JLALC is an LALC operating in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. It represents the interests of the Wahlubal people and other Aboriginal people in the Tenterfield and Kyogle area.
JLALC and the Wahlubal community were invited to become the founding governance members of COGS of Australia Foundation. They are not consultees. They are not a footnote. Their governance role is locked into the governing documents.
Zero-cost governance entitlements
Governance entitlements flow to LALC-held land automatically, at zero cost, entrenched in the governing documents. JLALC does not need to pay $4 to hold governance rights over Country that is already theirs.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent
On Country, resource extraction cannot proceed through this structure without Free, Prior and Informed Consent from the relevant custodians. Not consultation. Consent. This is locked in the governing documents and cannot be overridden by any resolution of any kind.
First Nations Advisory Council
The First Nations Advisory Council (FNAC) is a governance body within the Foundation structure. The FNAC must endorse Expansion Day before it is certified. Santos (ASX: STO) was designated as a Poor ESG Target at Foundation Day as an existing operational holding. The designation of Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) as a Poor ESG Target is subject to FNAC review before any ORG acquisition proceeds. The FNAC has real decision-making power, not an advisory role only.
First Nations Rights in the Structure
Real partnership requires real power. These are the structural protections for First Nations governance in COGS of Australia Foundation.
FNAC endorsement of Expansion Day
Expansion Day (the activation of the Members' own operating infrastructure) cannot be certified without FNAC endorsement. The Board certifies. The FNAC endorses. Both are required. Neither can proceed without the other.
FNAC review of Poor ESG Target acquisitions
Santos (ASX: STO) was designated as a Poor ESG Target at Foundation Day as an existing operational holding. The designation of Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) as a Poor ESG Target is subject to FNAC review before any ORG acquisition proceeds. Woodside Energy (ASX: WDS) and Beach Energy (ASX: BPT) are also subject to FNAC review before any acquisition proceeds. No acquisition of a Poor ESG Target company proceeds until FNAC review is complete.
30% Sub-Trust C floor
Not less than 30 per cent of annual Sub-Trust C (Community Projects Fund) distributions go to First Nations programs. This is an entrenched minimum, locked in the Sub-Trust C deed. It cannot be changed by any resolution. Community benefit is not discretionary.
Free, Prior and Informed Consent
Extraction through this structure on Country requires FPIC from the relevant custodians. This is not subject to majority vote. It cannot be overridden by any resolution of any kind. Consent is the threshold, not a recommendation.
The Coordination Problem
The Drake Address used a story by Rousseau to explain why communities above the ground have stayed outside of resource governance for two hundred years.
Two hunters are tracking a stag through the forest. A stag can feed the whole village. But it cannot be brought down by one person alone. Everyone must take their position along the path, trust the person beside them, and wait.
Then a rabbit runs across the path. Small. Easy. Enough for one person's meal today. If one person breaks for the rabbit, the stag is startled. It bolts. And everyone who held their position goes home with nothing.
This is the oldest coordination problem in human history. And it is the exact problem that has kept communities like ours on the outside of resource governance for two hundred years. Not because we are weak. Not because we don't understand what is happening. But because we have not had a vehicle that lets us hold our positions together.
The more members who join this structure, the larger the holding, the stronger the voice, the more credible the consent. The more people hold their positions, the larger the prize becomes for everyone.
The stag is not just the mineral. The stag is the intact Country. The clean water. The landscape your children will inherit. The legal authority to decide what happens to it before someone else makes that decision for you.
The stag is in sight. Hold your positions.
Continue reading: The First Nations Advisory Council: structure and governance. The Australian Dilemma: the legal background.