Shared history, in anyone's language

TODAY Laura Kostanski will be among the crowd in Melbourne's Federation Square watching Kevin Rudd on a big screen as he delivers an apology - which she heartily endorses - to indigenous Australians.

Laura Kostanski has studied the backlash from a plan to rename the Grampians National Park. Picture: David Crosling

TODAY Laura Kostanski will be among the crowd in Melbourne's Federation Square watching Kevin Rudd on a big screen as he delivers an apology - which she heartily endorses - to indigenous Australians.

Her special interest in Aboriginal culture comes via her expertise in place names, which are the subject of her doctoral thesis at the University of Ballarat.

"It's about sharing history, really, and place names can be a starting point for people understanding a shared history of Australia," Ms Kostanski said of the apology.

She works in the geographic names section of the Victorian Government's Office of the Surveyor-General, working part-time on her thesis, which analyses the fight that broke out over a state government plan, conceived in 1989, to restore the indigenous place names in the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park, about 3 1/2 hours west of Melbourne.

"They thought indigenous names were more appropriate," she said of the government's motivation. "The local people were not informed until the media got hold of it, and the indigenous local people weren't told either."

That set the scene for an old-fashioned barney, in anyone's language: a petition bearing 60,000 signatures was raised against the idea and there were hundreds of letters to the editor, 20 per cent in favour of the planned move, the rest against.

"I'm analysing what went wrong and what it means about Australian cultural history and identity that the restoration of indigenous names became such a controversial issue," MsKostanski said.

At the time there was no policy for dual naming in Victoria, so the plan meant removal of non-indigenous names.

"People who opposed the renaming said the history of colonisation would be lost, and people who supported it said the indigenous history had been replaced and overwritten and should be restored.

"In terms of identity some tourist operators said people wouldn't know how to get to Gariwerd, but supporters said they could promote increasing tourism to the area based on the change.

"So the problem was that there was no dual naming and there wasn't enough public consultation. They didn't know enough about indigenous history in the area so did not see the relevance."

Gariwerd, for example, means the mountain range. Some Aboriginal names have become corrupted and the changed form has become embedded.

Echuca, for example, on the Murray River north of Melbourne, is thought to be an anglicised version of the name of the indigenous people in the area, the Woolithaga. Quaintly, those inquiring will be told it was the Aboriginal word for "where the waters meet".

Today Ms Kostanksi won't be far from one of the newer sites bearing an indigenous name: the park between Federation Square and the Yarra, called Birrarung Marr, or "river of mist", in reference to the local Wurundjeri people.