Batman Park in Northcote to be renamed Gumbri Park

MELBOURNE founder John Batman’s name will be dumped from a popular Northcote park after a successful push to remove its association with the controversial figure.

Northcote’s Batman Park will officially be renamed Gumbri Park.

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BATMAN Park will be renamed Gumbri Park after the Wurundjeri Council endorsed a name change.

Pioneer John Batman is a divisive figure for his ties to indigenous land dispossession.

Darebin Council, which has the final say over its park names under its Place Naming Policy, is leading a push to remove the Northcote park’s association with controversial explorer John Batman, over his historical legacy which includes the murder of Aboriginal people.

Gumbri was also known as Jessie Hunter, the great niece of William Barak and the last Aboriginal girl to be born on Coranderrk mission.

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Gumbri was the overwhelming favourite in a public survey conducted by the council last year.

The survey found 83 per cent of respondents supported a name change, with 14 per cent opposed. 62 per cent of the supporters chose the name Gumbri.

Gumbri translates to “white dove” in the traditional language of the Wurundjeri people.

The survey was completed by 354 respondents and included two other names proposed by the Wurundjeri Council: Be Be Jern and Billibellary.

The name change is part of a wider campaign to strip Batman’s name from public places and buildings.

John Batman infamously convinced indigenous elders to sign a treaty trading more than 200,000ha of land for blankets, flour and other goods.

Batman federal Labor MP David Feeney backed calls to change the name of his electorate earlier this year.

Batman is known as one of Melbourne’s pioneers, but his name is synonymous with indigenous land dispossession after the explorer convinced indigenous elders to sign a treaty trading more than 200,000ha of ancestral land for blankets, flour and other goods in 1835.

Darebin Council will convene a committee to oversee the name change.