In October 2018, a company called Birubi Art was fined by the
Federal Court of Australia for selling fake Aboriginal artworks
that were actually made in Indonesia. Between 2015 and 2017,
more than eighteen thousand (18,000) units of boomerangs,
bullroarers, didgeridoos and message stones were sold to retail
outlets around Australia by Birubi Art falsely labelled as
“Aboriginal Art”, genuine” and
“Australia”. The Federal Court of Australia
confirmed Birubi Art had “breached the Australian consumer
law” and fined them AUD$2.3 million. This was an unusually
large penalty due to the “serious cultural harm” to
genuine Aboriginal artwork,“not just direct economic loss but
a weakening of the value of the authentic products”. The
belief is these were imported, perhaps smuggled into Australia from
Indonesia.
