A mayor in far north Queensland has faced widespread abuse after her council refused to change the name of a local town, which some say refers to the rape of indigenous women.
Burdekin Shire councillors, including Mayor Pierina Dalle Cort, have rejected a request from the state government to rename Yellow Gin Creek, as part of a “program to review place names that may be offensive or harmful”.
On July 9, the council passed a motion by a 6-1 vote to “provide feedback to the Department of Resources” on why it would not change the name “due to the local historical significance of the creek to the region.”
The state government is particularly focused on changing offensive names for places that contain the word ‘Gin’, which has historically been used to describe Aboriginal women, particularly those who have been sexually abused by white men.
Queensland City Councils That 16 Letters have been sent to Black Gin Creeks and 14 other creeks with Gin in their names, requesting that they be renamed.
One such document is the Burdekin letter about Yellow Gin Creek. According to some locals, this letter refers to a woman of mixed Aboriginal and white background.
“I’m not racist,” Ms Dalle Cort told Daily Mail Australia on Friday.I love the black community we have here.’
She said a poll had shown that 92 percent of people agreed the name should not be changed.
Burdekin Shire councillors have rejected a state government request to rename Yellow Gin Creek (pictured) as part of a ‘program to review place names that may be offensive or harmful’
The mayor also said that since the vote, she had been approached by a local Indigenous woman who told her that “the Jura elders want to keep the name Yellow Gin Creek” because it is named after one of their ancestors.
Ms Dalle Cort said she was aware of the sensitivities surrounding race in Queensland and elsewhere.
“I know it’s a problem everywhere… I’ve gotten some hate mail (over the Yellow Gin Creek issue), but that’s part of my job.”
She said she herself had experienced racism as a young person.
‘I’m of Italian and Sicilian background and as a child I was called a wog…
“We cannot change history, but what we do in the future also counts,” the mayor said.
Mrs Dalle Cort also said the place name may refer to a drink called ‘yellow gin’, ‘which was distilled by the early pioneers as a form of cheap alcohol’.
Despite the state government’s concerns, there is ultimately no historical documentation to indicate why the name was chosen. “So you don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong.”
In a 6-1 vote on July 9, the council passed a motion to “provide feedback to (the) Department of Resources” on why it would not change the name “due to the local historical significance of the creek to the region.” The council members are pictured, with Mayor Pierina Dalle Cort in front
The Queensland Place Names Act 1994 was updated in April 2024 to make it easier to rename place names deemed racist or offensive. However, the state government still requires local councils to implement many of the changes.
The state may rename roads and bridges with problematic names, but not creeks.
In 2016, the Queensland Department of Transport renamed the Yellow Gin Creek Bridge to ‘Youngoorah Bridge’, after the Juru word for ‘women’.
Ms Dalle Cort said she had been told that local Aboriginal elders were ‘happy to talk to her’ about the issue of the name Yellow Gin Creek.