Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to bring to the attention of the House what I believe is an important issue for the Indigenous people of the Simpson Desert and of the Munga Thirri, which means ‘big sandhill country’. I believe it is high time we had a debate about renaming the Simpson Desert after its original people, rather than the explorer who discovered it so many thousands of years later.

The Simpson Desert spans 175,000 square kilometres of inland Australia and three states—Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia. According to European Australian history, the first person to see it was explorer Charles Sturt, in 1845. It was not named until 1939, by a keen geologist and explorer, Cecil Madigan, who named it after former Adelaide Mayor and President of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia, Alfred Simpson.

Obviously the history of the Simpson Desert did not begin 69 years ago. Just last month I was given the unique and humbling opportunity to spend time and a night in the Simpson Desert with Park Ranger Don Rowlands, who is an elder of his tribe, the Wangkangurru. Don, who lives in Birdsville with his wife, Lyn, carries the stories and history of his people, who lived and thrived in the Simpson Desert—or Munga Thirri, the big sandhill country, as they called it. To the European explorers, the desert was a harsh and hostile place, devoid of any life or beauty. To our early settlers it meant hard lives and almost certain death. Yet to Don’s people the desert was a welcoming and nurturing place, a home to raise their children, to hunt for food and to meet with other tribes and discuss tribal law. It was a place to celebrate marriages and births, and commemorate deaths and tragedies.

I would like to take this opportunity to tell the House of one particularly story of the Simpson, told to me by Don and passed down to him by the elders of his tribe. It is a bush tale and, like every bush tale, there are two sides to the story. It is a story of a family who lived on Annandale Station, on the edge of the Simpson Desert. According to Birdsville folklore, the station manager went droving, leaving behind his wife and two daughters. Alone for many weeks, his wife went insane from the isolation, poisoning her two children with strychnine. However, the story of the Don’s elders is that the two young girls, who played daily with the young local Aboriginal children of the area, the Wangkangurru, brought home for their mother some desert plants. Unaware it was poisonous if not properly cooked, their mother prepared the plants for dinner. Tragically, her two young daughters died and she was sent into insanity.

Yet perhaps one of the great tragedies is that we have never truly appreciated the long history of the Simpson Desert. When I spoke with Don, we discussed the possibility of having the name changed to honour its original ownership, and this is what I would like to bring to the attention of the parliament this evening.

In many parts of my electorate of Maranoa and indeed across Australia, town names and areas have kept the same name, albeit an anglicised version, given it by local Indigenous peoples. In my hometown where I went to school were names such as Muckadilla—an anglicised version from the local people meaning ‘sweet running water’. Then there is Wallumbilla, Angellala, Arabella, Womalilla, and Mungallala. These are all anglicised names depicting where could be found in various area. These are just some of the many towns in the Maranoa electorate which have kept the same name identified by local explorers and early settlers as the names given to them by the local Indigenous peoples.

The Diamantina Shire mayor and the shire’s councillors—many of them have lived in far western Queensland their entire lives—are highly supportive of the Simpson Desert Park being renamed to recognise its ancestry. They agree that it is far more appropriate for the desert to be named after its original inhabitants, rather than by a South Australian geologist who I have great respect for but who did not name it until 1939.

It is high time we had this debate, not only on changing the name of the Simpson Desert but also those of many areas across Australia. One could ask: what is in a name? But I am sure that all Australians understand that acknowledgement and recognition through proper naming rights is a simple but fitting way to honour Australia’s history and the people who were here long before us. I hope that we are able to get the support of the state governments and other authorities to see this issue progressed through the appropriate channels to see name of the Simpson Desert changed to take that of the local tribe group that lived in that area for thousands of years. (Time expired)