Community opposes colonial renaming proposals
Northern Beaches councillors will be further briefed on a proposal to rename three local geographical features in recognition of a colonial explorer, after 311 respondents opposed the idea on the grounds it ‘disregards traditional owners’.
Late last year, Council requested community feedback on a proposal to rename three sites on the Peninsula in recognition of naturalist George Caley, who walked from Pennant Hills to Narrabeen in 1805 collecting plant specimens for the colony of New South Wales.
Caley recorded his expedition in his journal, An Account of a Journey to the Sea. In it, he named or referred to eight geographic features on the Northern Beaches, including Belrose Reservoir, Oxford Falls Cascades, and Middle Creek.
As such, the proposal would see a reserve at Belrose Reservoir be renamed as Sea Sight Reserve, as referred to by Caley in the journal.
Oxford Falls Cascades was proposed to be renamed Caley Falls, while Middle Creek 2 Reserve, next to Wakehurst Parkway, was suggested to be called Thick Brush Reserve.
Council received 472 submissions to the proposal, of which 66 per cent did not support renaming the sites.
The majority preferred the areas be renamed in consultation with local Indigenous people in recognition of Aboriginal connection with the land.
Responses suggested it would be ‘highly disrespectful to Aboriginal people to propose names related to the period of early colonisation and exploration’.
“Is this a joke?” one local wrote. “Why are you naming places after colonialists that contributed to the dispossession of the traditional owners? This is truly embarrassing… shame on you.”
Local Donal Carr, whose report to the Geographical Names Board on Caley was the basis for the proposals, spoke to Council in December in support of the renaming of the Belrose Reservoir reserve and Middle Creek 2.
Despite Council officers’ recommendation that the Council inform the Names Board it does not support the proposals, councillors instead voted to receive a further briefing on the issue.