Perth Voice Interactive

RENAMING “Banks Reserve” to “Warndoolier” has been endorsed by Vincent councillors subject to receiving approval from the Noongar elders in the Boordiya Reference Group.

But concerns were raised at this week’s council meeting that the complete renaming may lead to backlash against Aboriginal people.

Out of 276 submissions during consultation, 55 per cent were in favour of changing the name to Warndoolier outright, 22 per cent supported adding Warndoolier as a dual-name alongside Banks Reserve, and 20 per cent opposed a change (“Support for Noongar name,” Voice, February 10, 2024). 

The idea of an outright name change was raised by then-mayor Emma Cole last August.

Preference

At this week’s council meeting, former councillor Dudley Maier reminded current councillors during public question time that a complete rename came after consultation with elders had already been carried out. 

“It’s important to make it clear what the preferences is of the elders’ group,” he said. “Do they prefer a standalone name, or do they prefer co-naming?

“That should have been determined right at the very start. I think it’s dangerous to assume that they would prefer a particular outcome. They should have been presented with both options.”

He said there was a variety of views among Aboriginal people on renaming, and added they needed to consider “the potential difficult situation you might put members of the Aboriginal community in”. 

Mayor Alison Xamon said she’d been in two minds about whether renaming or dual-naming was the right option. 

She said Vincent took a lot of pride in recording its European history by means such as funding its Local History Centre, “and so I was thinking, well how does [renaming the reserve] actually sit with that?”.

“The other thing that I’m always concerned about is making sure that we aren’t doing things that are … potentially going to harm Aboriginal people within our community, mindful of how hurtful the debates around the referendum were, and how much pain that actually caused,” Ms Xamon said.

The mayor referred to her work advocating for refugees, saying: “I’m also conscious that working with people who are so often othered and misrepresented… is how much they say ‘please don’t do these things in my name, because we end up copping all the flak, but this is not something that we’ve actually asked for’.

“I’m going to be supporting this motion but I am doing it with some reservations, because I want to make sure that we’re not doing anything that’s inadvertently going to cause greater division. At the same time it’s so critical that we do recognise the original First Nation’s heritage of this land.”

The vote to endorse renaming was unanimous, and the proposal now goes to the Boordiya Reference Group elders. If they are happy with the idea, an application for renaming then goes to Landgate.

by DAVID BELL