Appease the 3% by Renaming Place Names

We take a look at the Queensland Government’s Great Keppel Island Draft Master Plan, well, the Woppa Draft Master Plan. Great Keppel Island has been relegated to a smaller font and placed in brackets. Apparently, there’s something wrong with Western place names, and we have to start using Aboriginal names instead. When I hear the name Woppa, I imagine a Hungry Jack’s burger (or Burger King burger). Or perhaps I imagine the English definition: Whopper, informal, “a gross or blatant lie”. For example, “Queensland Premier Steven Miles is telling whoppers about Woppa (Great Keppel Island) in brackets”.

Joking aside, Woppa is named after the Woppaburra People who were the original inhabitants of the island pre-colonisation. Great Keppel is named after 1st Viscount Augustus Keppel, Admiral in the British Royal Navy in the 1700s. My question is: What is the purpose of renaming these islands? Is it to erase Australia’s colonial past? Is that what people want? To forget history? Is it to appease the 3.2% of people who identify as Aboriginal, noting that not every Aboriginal person would agree with these name changes, so it’s actually less that 3%. What ever happened to democracy? Shouldn’t the majority of people support these name changes? But we already know the Government will never take it to a vote, because they already know the result.

Queensland already has many Aboriginal place names that have been named that way for many, many years. Caboolture, Coolangatta, Goondiwindi, Mooloolaba, Noosa, Toowoomba, Yeppoon, just to name a few. It’s not like Queenslanders have been against Aboriginal place names. What if we tried renaming these cities to Western names? Nobody would agree, no matter what their ethnicity or ancestry. People have grown up with these names and are very fond of them. So why do the Government think they can do the opposite, renaming Western names to Aboriginal ones? Brisbane people are already very fond of their city name. A name change should not even be entertained. Luckily, the Government can’t go too far with this without pissing everybody off. But they’re trying.

Last year, the Government renamed Fraser Island to K’Gari. I wasn’t consulted. Renaming a bridge is one thing, but renaming the world’s largest sand island without seeking approval by a democratic vote or whatever, that’s just wrong in my opinion. This animal, a dingo, apparently is now called a wongari. I thought dingo was an Aboriginal word. This is what happens when we just allow the willy-nilly renaming of things. Nobody can agree.

Look, I understand name changes in certain circumstances. If there was a place name that contained some kind of profanity, say, F**kstone Ridge, then yes, I understand why we might change it to Frogstone Ridge, and I’d guess most Queenslanders would agree with, or at least understand the name change. But renaming perfectly good names such as Great Keppel Island, is there really any need for this? Is this just the appeasement of the minority at the expense of the majority, democracy be damned?

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