In this post you will find
*an article from “the Australian” newspaper on a Queensland government report about Palm Island today
*an article on the history of the Island since 1914 when it was gazetted as an Aboriginal reserve.

Check out the website of Bwgcolman Community School

from “The Australian” newspaper
Cry for help on troubled island
Michael McKenna and Tony Koch
February 17, 2006
PALM Island, one of the most disadvantaged places in Australia, urgently requires sweeping changes to land ownership, employment opportunities, housing and policing, according to a landmark report.
Commissioned by Queensland Premier Peter Beattie and obtained by The Australian, the Future Directions report by lawyer Scott McDougall blames successive state governments for the problems on the tropical
island.

After three months on the island, 70km off the coast of north Queensland, Mr McDougall describes an underlying “siege mentality” among the 4000 mostly indigenous residents, with relations between police and the community at an all-time low following the
2004 riots.

But while Mr McDougall is damning in his criticism of current and previous government policy, he warns that lasting improvements will not be achieved unless residents and the Government abandon the existing “post-colonial dependent relationship”.

“For its part, the Government needs to facilitate the attitudinal shift by providing realistic resources, removing impediments and helping to create an environment which encourages the empowerment of the
Palm Island community,” the report says.

“Labelling the Palm Island community or its leadership as ‘dysfunctional’ or calling for the forced removal of residents from the island may be a manifestation of the frustration of politicians, but it is unlikely to assist in establishing the genuine partnership required, or to encourage private investment on the island.”

Mr Beattie is expected to table the report in parliament within weeks before making an official response in three months.

The report was commissioned after debate over the future of the community became a national focus with the riots on the island in November, 2004.

The death in custody of local man Mulrunji Doomadgee sparked the riots, with police invoking a state of emergency after the police station, barracks and courthouse were set alight by a vocal group of angry residents.

In his report, Mr McDougall said the problems were not created by residents of the island, which was established in 1918 as a penal settlement for indigenous individuals and clans from at least 57
different language-speaking areas around Australia.

“Rather, they result from the unresolved trauma of dislocation, serial under-funding and poor decision-making of successive Queensland governments stretching back to 1918,” the report says.

Mr McDougall said while funding was not a solution in itself, the allocation of additional funding was “essential in this instance”.

The report says major problems requiring immediate attention include the provision of adequate housing and tranferring the responsibility for house building, maintenance and occupancy from the council to a special committee.

As well, Mr McDougall said leadership was needed to restore “functional policing” to the island and that all Queensland police cadets should spend at least one week on the island to be educated in cultural matters and to better understand indigenous people.

Employment has to be lifted from the current disastrous 10per cent to at least 50per cent and land tenure and government assistance must be provided to people to encourage private investment in such basic
enterprises as a bakery, post office, canteen, garage, motel and aged-care hostel.

Eco-tourism was an “obvious” opportunity for investment and employment, Mr McDougall recommended.

He wrote that demand for housing was so great that residents who had a home would not leave to take a job on the mainland, usually in Townsville, because they were scared the home would be re-allocated while they were absent.

As well, under the present system of home occupancy, if the person renting the home from the council died, there was no guarantee their surviving family could remain in the house.
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A short history of Palm Island 1914 -1999 from the website of the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action
(FAIRA)

The history of the Queensland Aboriginal reserve system from its foundation in 1898 was characterised by a largely incompetant and dishonest administration which acted with a blatant disregard to basic human rights.
Of the many Aboriginal reserves set up across Queensland, Palm Island in particular gained a reputation as a “punishment place”, a reputation which still lingers today.
Before white invasion in North Queensland, Palm Island belonged to the Manbarra people. Descendants of the Manbarra were still living on the tropical island, 65 km NE. of Townsville, when in 1914 the Queensland Government gazetted the Island as a reserve.
No further action was taken by the Government until 1918 when a cyclone flattened the Hull River Aboriginal Reserve near Tully. The Queensland Protector, J.W. Bleakley, then decided that Palm Island would become the replacement site. He regarded the location as an ideal place to confine Aboriginal and Islander people who were regarded by white society as “problem cases” and “uncontrollables.”
Over the next two decades around 1630 people from 40 different Aboriginal groups across Queensland were removed by the Department and deposited on the Island.
Removal to Palm Island was the heaviest punishment a Department officer could legally administer. In charge of the new reserve settlement was an ex-army captain, Robert Curry, a man with no previous administrative experience.
From the start the settlement was underfinanced, with the residents of the island surviving on meagre rations and living in complete poverty. Leprosy and venereal disease spread through the settlement and the doctors appointed to the island were less than competent in their approach to medicine.
No inspections of Palm Island were made by the Department until the Governor of Queensland, Donald Thatcher visited in 1923 and was critical of the squalid living conditions he observed.
This quickly led to a visit by the Protector, Bleakley but no real improvement in conditions occurred. Administrator Robert Curry continued to feud with the other white staff on the Island. Gradually he succumbed to the combined effects of alcoholism and mental illness and in February 1930 he went on a destructive rampage, killing his own children and torching several buildings before he was shot by one of his own Aboriginal staffers.
As was the case on all Queensland reserves, the residents of Palm Island were subject to strict supervision. Conditions were jail-like. No one could leave the Island without the superintendant’s permission and he had the power to censor all outgoing mail.
Speaking Aboriginal languages was forbidden. Employment opportunities were limited and the wages earned by Aboriginal workers were ‘managed’ and misappropriated by the Department. Despite this high level of enforced control, poor health conditions continued to prevail. In 1957 a series of incidents involving the staff treatment of Aboriginal women and a decision by the Department to cut wages, led to a strike by the residents.
The Department responded by expelling 25 identified ringleaders of the resistance, and their families, from the island. A second strike occurred in 1974 when the Department sacked the local Community Council and threatened to turn control of the Island over to the Townsville City Council.
The Department finally relinquished control of the Island in 1985 when title for the Island was passed to the Community Council in the form of a DOGIT. (Deed of Grant in Trust.)
While this gave the residents a greater say in the administration of the island, the transfer of title led to the removal of much of the Government infrastructure. Soon after the decision was made, barges arrived and houses, shops, the timber mill and farming equipment were disassembled and shipped back to the mainland.
Like many remote communities, Palm Island today continues to grapple with social problems including high unemployment, alcohol abuse and crime, a direct legacy of 80 years of mismanagement by the Queensland Government.

Posted by kurityityin in HOME - current news, Aborigininity