The traditional name of the world’s largest sand island has been restored after nearly 200 years, with other Queensland places set to follow suit.
A ceremony has been held on Fraser Island (K’gari) to mark 30 years since the island was heritage listed.
K’gari, a word meaning paradise in the language of the traditional owners, the Butchulla people, will replace the term Fraser Island—similar to Uluru shedding the name “Ayers Rock”.
More than 19 hectares of land, the equivalent of about 23 rugby league fields, were also handed back to traditional owners through the Butchalla Aboriginal Corporation on Wednesday.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, addressing hundreds of people at a ceremony on K’gari, said the move—after a period of community consultation—was “another step” in the path to treaty.
“Our generation has been given the opportunity to begin to put the centuries of wrong right,” she said.
“(It’s about) acknowledging the wrongs of the past in order to build a better, brighter future.”
The tourism icon off the coast of Hervey Bay was rebadged Fraser Island in the 1800s after Scottish woman Eliza Fraser whose ship ran aground there in 1836.
Fraser lied about being mistreated by the Butchulla people during her short time on the island and the narrative is considered to have directly led to the massacre and dispossession of traditional owners.
Kingfisher Bay on K’gari. Picture: Lachie Millard
Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation chair Aunty Gayle Minniecon said the change would be an experience of “loss” for some people—signifying non-traditional owners—but they would not “have their spirit, heart and soul broken” as the Butchulla people had.
Switching the island’s name back to its traditional K’gari is the largest place name change in Queensland’s history to date.
Aunty Minniecon said she hoped the name restoration would lead to the homelands of other Queensland First Nations groups being rebadged.
“It’s not just the Butchulla people that deserve this, all Aboriginal people had their homelands,” she said.
It’s understood the government will soon begin consulting on current laws that set out the process in hopes of streamlining the system.
Aunty Minniecon said some of the 19 hectares of land—which can’t be bought, sold, or mortgaged and must be used for the benefit of the Butchulla people—were spiritual areas.
Access to these areas will be restricted to Butchulla people to practice and strengthen traditional customs.
The land parcels make up 0.01 per cent of K’gari’s total area.
The Environment Department rebadged the Great Sandy National Park area of the island as K’gari in 2017, and UNESCO formally adopted the name for the World Heritage Area in 2021.
Aunty Rachel Killer said the Butchulla people had faced “many seasons and suns and faced many many winds to get to this day”.
“This day that our lands’ rightful name of K’gari is recognised and celebrated,” she said.