Two big ticks for Albo this week – first, for stating that he will, as a matter of urgency, obtain drones and missiles for the ADF; and second, for not going to COP27, as he has more important things to do here.
I was delighted this week to read of the proposal to rename the new Cotter dam the Onyong-Cotter dam.
Now, I’m not into virtue signalling, and I abhor people who deface and call for the removal of old statues like Captain Cook’s, and who want to erase our rich and colourful past and impose their often imperfect values on the rest of us. However, there is immense logic and common sense in naming the new enlarged Cotter dam the Onyong-Cotter dam. To me, it’s a no brainer.
1. To start with, the old original Cotter dam is now under water. The new dam was built about 200 metres from it. There is no need to call the new much enlarged dam the Cotter dam.
2. Liam Cotter*, ex-Irish convict and pioneer of the ACT and surrounds, already has a number of things named after him (the Cotter River and Cotter Road, for example).
3. Liam Cotter may not have survived the late 1820s without the help of his best mate, Onyong, the Ngambri tribal leader and warrior. Onyong only has a creek running into Lake George and a small hill at the northern end of that lake named after him. The two friends spent a number of years together, and Onyong and his Ngambri mob sheltered and protected Cotter in the early days. Onyong died in 1852 in a fight with a rival leader. Cotter lived on to a ripe old age, and died in 1886.
4. ACT governments of all political persuasions have only ever really recognised the Ngunnawals as traditional custodians of the ACT land, to the exclusion of everyone else. The reality is that most of the ACT (certainly the part south of the Molonglo River) was Ngambri country, and possibly some of it was also Ngarigu country (there are very few, if any, of the Ngarigu left).
The Ngunnawals were in the northern part of the ACT and Yass area. Indeed, the Greens have taken this mismatch one step further by having the ACT Assembly open each day by the Speaker uttering a few words in the Ngunnawal language. The Federal Parliament recognises that they are sitting on the traditional lands of both the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.
5. History needs to be respected and taught to our children as accurately as possible. Whilst there have been some very weak cases put forward for renaming some places in Australia, the case for an Onyong-Cotter dam is very strong.
I don’t know about “the Voice”, but calling our new dam the Onyong-Cotter gives due regard to those three essential things that make Australia the county it is: namely, a country founded on a rich Indigenous heritage going back 60,000 years, a fine British heritage in terms of our institutions, and a current, vibrant, truly multicultural, modern Australia.
* Correction: The Cotter River and the Cotter Dam in the ACT are named after Garrett Cotter (1802-1886), an Australian convict of Irish descent.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Canberra Daily.
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