Aboriginal elder ‘shattered’ by ‘racist’ decision not to dual name Blackwood River

The South West town which rejected adding an Aboriginal name to the Blackwood River is mostly “racist”, according to a local Indigenous elder. Aboriginal matriarch Sandra Hill said she was left “absolutely shattered” by the news dual-naming of the Blackwood River would be denied by the Shire of Boyup Brook. Instigated by the Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes, the addition of the Aboriginal name Goorbilyup required all local governments along the 270km river to agree for Landgate to formalise the change. The Shire of Augusta-Margaret River council unanimously supported the change following a report by the Bridgetown-Greenbushes cultural inclusion advisory committee, of which Ms Hill was a member. In an interview with the National Indigenous Times, she was critical of the Boyup Brook council’s decision to seek public comment on the proposal, that received 16 submissions with 10 opposed. “They (Boyup Brook) put it out to the community and said ‘do you want this or not’ and Boyup Brook is full of … colonist ancestors,” Ms Hill said. “They’re all landowners out there. They all are very, very racist, I’ll just be honest. “Not all of them, but most of them.” Boyup Brook Shire president Richard Walker declined to directly respond to Ms Hill’s allegation that the region was mostly racist. “We are of course always willing to talk respectfully to any member of our community, Aboriginal or not,” he said. Previously he said there were a range of reasons for the majority of the consultation being against the change and the council had to take it into consideration. “It was something the community should have some say in and there was definite opposition towards supporting that and that’s what influenced the decision of the council,” he said. “There were a range of reasons, with a combination of concerns, but we have to consider the community’s point of view.” Ms Hill said all other councils along the river had supported the change but Boyup Brook shire had not contacted any traditional owners for input prior to announcing their decision via social media. “The other shires just said ‘this is just the right thing to do, and it’ll be good for our regions in terms of tourism and in terms of reconciliation’,” she said. “They didn’t put it out there for people to vote on it, they just said … ‘it’s a good thing to do. It’ll benefit us’. “We’ve been working on it for over a year and we had the support of all (the other) shires. “You can imagine the amount of work it takes to get all the cultural custodians and the elders to agree to this.”