Letters: K’gari is still Fraser Island to me
Fraser Island will now officially be known as K’gari, but like Ayers Rock, it will always be called as it was when I was growing up.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
What’s in a name?
For Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders and their supporters, I realise it means a lot.
As far as the Palaszczuk government is concerned, Fraser Island will now officially be known as K’gari (C-M, June 8).
I have several close Indigenous and Islander friends and colleagues and they are indeed beautiful people.
There are times when I get the impression it’s our government that feels the need to change place names to increase its popularity, as none of my Indigenous friends rant about such issues.
Like Ayers Rock, Fraser Island will always be called as it was when I was growing up.
My fishermen friends only ever say they’re off to Fraser for a week.
Is this wrong among non-Indigenous people? I certainly don’t think so.
K’gari might mean paradise in the language of the Butchulla people and to us it is a paradise too in the true meaning of the word.
Why cannot we all exist together and use whatever name suits us?
I realise K’gari will be used in all official correspondence from now on but a little mutual give and take is needed.
Ken Johnston, Rochedale South
Silly name changing and altering history sum up the total of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s achievements.
Unlike her, I come from pioneer stock, and will continue like most others to refer to Fraser Island by that name.
If the few remaining descendants of the area’s First People want to use their own name, let them do so.
Don’t impose it on the rest of us in the interest of vote harvesting and grandstanding.
Keith O’Dempsey, Clontarf
*********
PREMIER OUT OF TOUCH
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk just doesn’t get it.
She doesn’t get how angry residents are when they wake up to find their family car missing.
The Premier has minders and security assigned to her.
She doesn’t have to sleep feeling afraid with one eye open in case a group of delinquents somehow get into her house at night with knives and machetes.
The Premier would never have to wait on a ramp in an ambulance for hours to be handed over to hospital staff in a public hospital.
She would be whisked away to a private hospital, a private room and a private medico.
Ms Palaszczuk doesn’t have to join a long queue to inspect a potential house to rent and compete with a hundred other hopeful renters because she is wealthy and she owns her own home.
She does not have to sleep in her car or pitch a tent in a park.
The cost of living probably doesn’t register with the Premier either because if she does do her own shopping she can afford to buy whatever she wants – regardless of price.
It is obvious the Premier doesn’t sit in a traffic jam for too long because if she did, she would have built more motorways and arterial roads.
The Premier has a personal chauffeur to drive her.
The cost of fuel at the bowser doesn’t concern the Premier either as her chauffeur would fill up the tank of her government car and she probably doesn’t know what the cost is anyway.
Lizzie Haydon, Runcorn
As an elderly resident of the Gold Coast I fear for the lives of older residents.
Every day an older person is either robbed, bashed or has their car stolen by teen criminals.
Yet they remain anonymous because they are under 18.
Therein lies the problem. They should be named and shamed for all to see and know who they are.
This may shame those and their families and force them to turn their lives around.
Ian Sutton, Robina
********
MANUAL TO BEAT THIEVES
I have to agree with David Topp (Letters, June 8) that a five-speed manual gearbox is an excellent teen thief deterrent.
I lost my car keys at a local shopping mall.
The next day, centre management rang me and said a man had found my keys thrown into some bushes.
It seems the would-be thieves had located my car with the remote control but couldn’t drive it away because of the manual gearbox.
Hazel Hillier, Springwood
********
AGED CARE TAX
Please stop the dog whistling about broken promises on taxation as evidenced in the story “Aged care levy option” (C-M, June 8).
Australia needs to have a grown-up conversation about tax in general and funding aged care in particular.
As someone whose family is dealing with the situation of two parents with dementia I am very aware of the toll this takes on family members who act as caregivers and on aged care workers.
We need practical, sensibly funded policies.
Let’s not rule out options without careful consideration.
Let’s stop playing politics and genuinely seek solutions.
Younger people already have huge mortgages to contend with.
They may need help to deal with escalating aged care costs.
Vicki Dixon, Palm Beach
********
HYDROGEN RISK
The ever-increasing procession of present and former sporting heroes jumping on the carbon neutrality bandwagon to save the planet is becoming tedious and annoying.
Whenever a product requires a celebrity’s endorsement, I get suspicious.
The latest is former rugby league player Johnathan Thurston who
co-owns a planned hydrogen-powered fleet of passenger aircraft (C-M, June 8).
Of course the virtue-signalling that has accompanied this announcement only plays lip service to the fact the technology required to allow this to happen has yet to be invented, let alone fully tested.
I’m assuming as the launch of “The Hydrogen Flight Alliance” nears, Thurston will be told not to mention the Hindenberg disaster of 1937.
This disaster blighted the role of hydrogen in aviation from then on.
And as we know, the facts, particularly when it comes to costs, are never allowed to stand in the way of the narrative when clean energy is discussed.
I’ve always believed in leaving technology to the scientists, and football to footballers.
Crispin Walters, Chapel Hill
*********
MIGRATION CHANGES
Reading the article about the real story on migrant numbers in Australia (C-M, June 8) reminded me that from 1788 to 1868 around 162,000 people aka convicts were transported from Britain and Ireland to what is now named Australia.
So now we have the highest proportion of migrants in the Western world.
These migrants are not forced to come here as before but fill essential jobs to keep our “lucky” country going.
Lesley Brandis, Camp Hill
*********
AN ABSENCE OF EMPATHY
We can never begin to comprehend the soul-destroying depths of sorrow which young mum Nikkole Southwell plummeted into after the miscarriage of her baby (C-M, June 7).
Even more harrowing was the cold-hearted treatment which Nikkole experienced.
This distraught young women was left sitting in the Ipswich Hospital waiting room, wrapped in sheets with her own blood, forced to hold her own miscarried baby in a biohazard bag.
The trauma of miscarriage would be every woman’s nightmare, but the absence of sympathy and empathy from nursing staff is beyond belief.
Even if there are no guidelines for women who miscarry, surely there is a warm embrace extended to women who deal with miscarriage trauma.
Helen Holdey, Brighton
**********
Join the conversation. Send your letters to letters@couriermail.com.au or go to couriermail.com.au/letters
‘Anything goes’: Battlelines drawn over ’backward’ abortion ploy
Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter has backtracked on his vow to repeal abortion laws – but Queenslanders say they have already had enough of the games. HAVE YOUR SAY
If you want to save democracy, then God save the King
A constitutional monarchy such as ours is ideally placed to make sure that power ultimately resides with the people, not the powerful, writes Susan Carter.