Indigenous academic calls for audit of racist, offensive QLD place names

The man who fought to rename Coon cheese and a Toowoomba grandstand says a statewide audit of racist or offensive names is needed, starting with a Bundaberg-area town. VOTE IN THE POLL

There has been a push to rename racist place names.

The man who fought to rename Coon cheese and Toowoomba’s E.S. “N--ger’’ Brown grandstand says a statewide audit of racist or offensive names is needed, starting with the Bundaberg-hinterland town of Gin Gin.

Stephen Hagan’s call comes six years after the Department of Resources launched a “proactive review’’ of its place names database and removed 10 north Queensland localities containing the word “N--ger’’.

It followed complaints about N--ger’s Bounce, a hill 100km west of Charters Towers, which resulted in it also being erased from the database.

Mount N--ger, 200km west of Cardwell, N--ger Head near the tip of Cape York and seven N--ger creeks, one in Herberton, were also abolished in September 2017.

Any such changes need to comply with the Place Names Act 1994 which has strict guidelines and required local input to trigger an investigation.

Stephen Hagan has campaigned for years to remove offensive place names. Picture: Shae Beplate.

There also must be extensive consultation with stakeholder groups including First Nations people and local governments.

But Dr Hagan, an indigenous academic and author, said progress had been too slow.

“It’s not good enough to just wait for complaints. These complaints get lost in the system and it can take years for any action to happen,’’ he said.

“Rather than wait, why not do an audit of place names of geographical landmarks around the state?

“Then take them to the local traditional owners and ask if they find them offensive and what they want the names changed to.

“(Premier Annastacia) Palaszczuk says she is all about truth telling, so why not do this?’’

He said a good place to start was Gin Gin, an area which saw several large massacres of indigenous people including one in retribution for the killing of Gregory Blaxland Jr, son of the famous explorer, and two shepherd boys.

Gin Gin Hotel on the corner of Mulgrave St and Walker St, Gin Gin, near Bundaberg.

Dr Hagan said he was not convinced of some explanations for the origin of the town’s name, such as a former gin distillery, or an indigenous word meaning “red soil’’ or “thick scrub’’.

“Gin is a very derogatory, offensive word used to describe indigenous women,’’ he said.

“There are other place names nearby with the word gin including Yellow Gin Creek.

“If the government is really serious about this issue it should research the origins of Gin Gin.’’

Black Gin Creek in Longreach appeared on maps about the same time and after community consultation was recently changed to Watyakan creek, which means “women’s creek’’.

In October 2020, the government renamed Black Gin Creek outside Rockhampton to Dundula, meaning gum tree in the language of the local Darumbal people.

“From the nine-week public consultation, there were 723 community submissions with 99 per cent in support of the change,” then resources minister Dr Anthony Lynham said.

Darumbal elder Aunty Sally Vea Vea estimated at the time that 26 Black Gin creeks still remained in Queensland.

Black Gin Creek Rd in Alton Downs was another that Dr Hagan has campaigned against.

But local historian Lorna McDonald argued it “probably means something very different from what it meant 150 years ago” and the debate was a “storm in a teacup’’.

There are still many Blackfellow creeks, until recently including one in Cairns.

It first appeared on maps in 1883 but was renamed Bana Gindarja (cassowary) in January this year.

Aspokesman for the Department of Resources said the department “continues to consider proactive approaches to address offensive and culturally inappropriate place names and to formally recognise First Nations peoples and languages’’.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk with the Butchulla people at the renaming of Fraser Island in June. Picture: Liam Kidston

He said six contentious place names had been changed since 2017, at the suggestion of local traditional owners, the best known being K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) last month.

The Butchulla people had campaigned for years to remove Eliza Fraser’s name because she penned a now debunked account of indigenous locals, after being shipwrecked, in which she called them savages and cannibals.

Names commemorating early settlers linked to massacres or racist actions have been controversial for years, such as Mount Wheeler near Rockhampton. It was finally changed to Gai-i in 2018.

It referred to native police officer Frederick Wheeler, reputed to have killed many Aboriginal people.

Nearby Mount Jim Crow National Park became Baga, also in 2018, because it apparently referred to a notorious United States racial segregationist.

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill has opposed various attempts to change the city’s name, which was bestowed in honour of Robert Towns.

Some historians claimed Towns endorsed slave trading expeditions to the Pacific Islands in search of workers for the cane fields.

Truth for Treaty’s Mick Gooda says various Boundary streets should retain their names as a reminder of past treatment of indigenous people.

The Atherton Tableland is also controversial as it is named after early settler John Atherton.

He sent native troopers to avenge the killing of a bullock, leading to the Speewah massacre in the mid-1890s.

Yeppoon’s Ross Creek is named after Robert Ross, who removed the Kanomi people from North Keppel Island after complaining they were disturbing his cattle.

Distressed Kanomi tried to swim 12km back to the island from the mainland, but most drowned.

In 1912, the last of the Kanomi-Woppaburra tribes were forcibly removed to Fraser Island by the government.

Dozens of creeks, roads, headlands and other features still refer to indigenous killings, such as Skeleton Creek and a Butchers Creek on the Atherton Tableland, west of Cairns, where there was a massacre in 1887.

Battle Hole on the Barcoo River refers to the killing of many indigenous people by settlers in the 1870s while Skull Hole in Cloncurry, used by native police, got the eerie title from the number of skulls and human bones there.

The turnoff to Murdering Creek Rd is clearly marked on the Sunshine Mwy.

There is a Murdering Creek Rd at the Tewantin/Peregian turnoff, just south of the Noosa Civic Centre, which has often sparked debate about whether it should remain.

Opponents claimed it created a “stigma’’ and the massacre it referred to was actually nearer Lake Weyba, while some local Gubbi Gubbi people wanted it to remain.

There is also a Black Shoot Gully on the banks of Hinze Dam in the Gold Coast hinterland.

Signs marking it, on boths sides of the popular tourist drive from Nerang to the NSW border, have in recent months had the letter “s’’ painted out.

Point Skirmish on Bribie Island was so named in 1799 by Captain Matthew Flinders.

He fired a musket at an Aboriginal man who threw a spear after Flinders stopped him from trying to remove the explorer’s hat. The spot is now called South Point.

The Leap, north of Mackay, is another notorious place name.

An Aboriginal woman with a child was said to have leapt off a high cliff in 1867 after being pursued by native police, although some dispute this.

The Leap Hotel and its statue of an indigenous woman said to have jumped off a nearby cliff with her baby, rather than be killed by native police. Picture: Lachie Millard

Researchers behind the Colonial Frontier Massacres project, documenting the slaying of at least 8400, mainly-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by colonists between 1788 and 1930, have now mapped 311 mass killings, although an article in conservative journal Quadrant disputed its accuracy.

But some indigenous leaders say there can be value in retaining names referring to past mistreatment of Aborigines.

Treaty Advancement Committee co-chair Mick Gooda told The Australian newspaper last year that he was against changing the many Boundary streets, several of which still exist in Brisbane including ones in Spring Hill and West End.

They originally referred to demarcation lines, in some areas lengths of rope laid out on the ground. Indigenous people in some Queensland cities and towns could not cross the lines, particularly after dark.

Mr Gooda said they were “reminders of historical wrongdoing”.

The Department of Natural Resources has previously said the racist names would not be completely eradicated because they still appeared on historical maps and plans.