GOONDIWINDI RESIDENTS HAVE CHANCE TO MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE MAP

Minister for Natural Resources and Water, Craig Wallace, today encouraged Goondiwindi residents to become involved in the creation of their community’s history by suggesting new place names.

Minister Wallace is inviting residents to name a geographic feature or area of land by lodging an application with his department.

“The Department of Natural Resources and Water administers the Place Names Act 1994, which controls the official naming of localities, suburbs and geographical features within local government areas,” Mr Wallace said.

“Queensland has over 40,000 official place names and these are constantly being added to by the community,” Mr Wallace said.

“People have a chance to be part of history by creating a new Queensland place name,” he said.

“We do not accept place names that honour living people, we try to avoid duplicating names and commercial names but otherwise people are free to put their mark on the map.”

Some of Queensland’s more unusual names include Baking Board (Chinchilla Shire), Yorkeys Knob (Cairns), Macaroni (Carpentaria Shire), Hell Hole Gorge National Park (Quilpie Shire), Silver Spur (Inglewood Shire), Beer Creek (Esk Shire) and Ginger Beer Creek (Calliope Shire).

Close to 110 new and amended place names were added to the database over the past year.

Minister Wallace said Goondiwindi was named after combining two Aboriginal words together, although the actual language and dialect have been lost over time.

“A search of NRW’s place names online database shows Goondiwindi comes from “goondi” meaning droppings or dung and “windi” meaning duck,” Mr Wallace said.

“It probably referred to a roosting spot along the Macintyre River which flows through the edge of the town.

“I’m told it is still quite common to see ducks wandering down the main street of the town today.”

Many of Queensland’s suburb and town names echo the fascinating history of the area they occupy. Some reflect Aboriginal culture and language and others stem from a European background.

Other examples of place name histories around Goondiwindi include:

·Toobeah, which is from a lost Aboriginal dialect meaning “to point” and was first given to the railway station in the area in 1910, while Yelarbon is an Aboriginal word for “large lagoon”;

·Inglewood, which is a combination of the Aboriginal word “ingol” which means “cypress pines” and the English word wood. Inglewood was named by surveyor LF Landsberg in 1862 and it is believed he was referring to a clump of cypress pines on the north bank of the Macintyre Brook.

·Kurumbul has been known by its present name since 1912. Kurumbul is an Aboriginal word, indicating magpie. Before that is was known as Burranba, which was an Aboriginal word for brigalow.

Minister Wallace said the place names database reflected the diverse and fascinating background of many of the state’s suburbs and towns.

Mr Wallace said people could look up the name of their suburb or town by visiting: www.nrw.qld.gov.au/property/place_names.html

"The place names website is an evolving document and we are always on the lookout for new information about how a suburb, town or land feature got its name."