Australia's Indigenous arts community is calling for changes to the law to make it illegal to import and sell fake Aboriginal-style souvenirs.

Key points: 80 per cent of shops visited by campaigners were selling unauthentic souvenirs

80 per cent of shops visited by campaigners were selling unauthentic souvenirs It is not illegal to sell fake Aboriginal-style souvenirs under ACCC laws

It is not illegal to sell fake Aboriginal-style souvenirs under ACCC laws Government says it will continue to work with the Indigenous Art Code and the ACCC on the issue

Gabrielle Sullivan, chief executive of Indigenous Art Code, has been collecting dozens of mementos and trinkets during an investigation into fake Aboriginal-style souvenirs over the past six months.

"These items are extremely popular … marketed as traditional rainmaking instruments from far north Queensland — [but they're] bamboo, made in Indonesia," she said.

Indigenous Art Code are a group who work to preserve and promote ethical trading in Indigenous art, and they are pushing for changes to be made before next year's Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

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Ms Sullivan has amassed a large collection of mugs, plates, boomerangs, digeridoos, tea-towels — all adorned with Aboriginal-style art, but almost all of it made overseas, in India, Indonesia and China.

"Of the shops — or galleries if you can call them — that we went to as part of this research I would say that 80 per cent of those shops were selling things that were not authentic," she said.

Among Ms Sullivan's collection of fake souvenirs is this "traditional rainmaking instrument", actually made in Indonesia. ( ABC News: Karen Michelmore )

The obstacle for Ms Sullivan and others campaigning against these fake souvenirs is that it is not illegal to sell fake Aboriginal-style souvenirs under Australian Competition and Consumer (ACCC) laws.

At the moment the rules say that as long as the souvenirs are not specifically claiming to be authentic and have a small sticker stating where they were made, it is not considered misleading to sell objects that have been mass-produced overseas.

Aboriginal artists 'up against tidal wave of fakes'

The situation has alarmed Aboriginal artists for decades.

"Each cultural group has their own cultural stories and their own ownership of designs and patterns and stories," said Valerie Keenan, the manager of the Girringun Art Centre in far north Queensland.

"And that's particular to those people and it's not something that someone else can take on and try to reproduce."

The Girringun Aboriginal Art Centre has been working for the past two years to develop their own line of products, but it has been a slow process.

Campaigners have been visiting shops around the country to see how many products being sold are fake. ( ABC News: Karen Michelmore )

In the meantime, Ms Keenan said they were up against an insurmountable tidal wave of fake products.

"What is actually being seen out there is a very commodified product I think," she said.

"It's a kind of imitation art which undermines the artist's ability to express the real story.

"What you are seeing is just a mish mash of something that people think, 'oh that's Aboriginal art', but ultimately it isn't particularly good art."

Aboriginal art centres like Girringun and the Indigenous Art Code have joined together to lobby the Federal Government for a change to the laws.

Under ACCC laws as long as the product says where it was made, it is not illegal to sell fake Aboriginal style souvenirs. ( ABC News: Karen Michelmore )

They have written to dozens of state and federal politicians, calling for them to make it illegal to market or sell Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and crafts products in Australia, and for all arts and crafts to have to have been made by Indigenous people, or licenced to them, with clear documentation.

The Federal Government funds more than 80 Indigenous art centres and organisations around Australia.

In a statement, the Government said it would continue working with the Indigenous Art Code and the ACCC on the issue.