Some of Hobart's public places could be renamed to honour Aboriginal people under a plan floated by the city's Lord Mayor.
Key points:
- Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds says she wants greater recognition for Truganini
- Aboriginal leader Rodney Dillon says renaming is "long overdue"
- A historian says changing names is "fraught with danger"
Last year, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre urged authorities to adopt nipaluna as the dual name for Hobart in an act of reconciliation.
Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds said a nipaluna/Hobart dual name was not off the table, but the Hobart City Council was waiting until after it developed its Reconciliation Action Plan before revisiting the idea.
Councillor Reynolds said she would like to see a place like Franklin Square renamed Truganini Place to remember the historic figure.
"I feel that she needs stronger recognition as a diplomat, as a peacemaker, as a survivor," she said.
"I'd like to have a conversation with the community about places that they think would be appropriate to rename potentially as Truganini Place."
Councillor Reynolds said she wanted to ensure that Aboriginal history was recognised.
"Some of our history has not been as well told as other parts of it, and a lot of stories from the Aboriginal community, a lot of stories about the Black War, just haven't been explained to the community," she said.
"One example is where George Augustus Robinson's house was, close to the corner of Elizabeth and Warwick Street and the survivors of the Black War camped there for several days before they went on their fateful trip to Flinders Island never to return.
"As part of reconciliation we'd like to see these places recognised."
Rodney Dillon from the Tasmanian Regional Aboriginal Communities Alliance (TRACA) has embraced Councillor Reynolds' suggestion.
"It's long overdue. It's moving a council ahead in leaps and bounds," he said.
He would like to see Macquarie Street in Hobart' CBD renamed.
"I've walked up and down Macquarie Street a fair bit in my working life and it just sticks in my throat every day to think that they can keep [Major General Lachlan Macquarie] alive as a hero, when he wasn't a hero he was a murderer," he said.
"Macquarie was a really bad person to Aboriginal people and did a lot of serious damage to our people, and he got a street named after him, and not only in this area, but in other areas.
"Why haven't they changed the name of the Batman Bridge? [The explorer John] Batman was one of the worst people to our people."
Changing names 'fraught with danger'
Tasmanian historian and toponymist Wayne Smith said changing the name of a place or street can be complicated.
"Most place names are under the control of councils and geographical features of mountains and rivers come under the nomenclature board," he said.
"Renaming a street is not only possible, it happens quite a bit. But to rename a street, it involves quite a bit of expenditure."
Mr Smith does not support changing the names of places and streets.
"If you change a name from something to something else, you tend to sweep away the history of that name," he said.
"Franklin Square of course honours the ex-governor Sir John Franklin who was quite famous while he was here.
"It is fraught with danger, if you start changing names, there needs to be a good reason for it, otherwise you're sweeping away our current history."
He said it would be tricky to change the name of a place like Franklin Square.
"Franklin Square, I would suggest, is probably impossible to change because the current nomenclature rules are that if a name's been current for 100 years or so, you've gotta have a pretty good reason to change it," he said.
Posted, updated
