OBI OBI RESIDENTS HAVE CHANCE TO MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE MAP

Minister for Natural Resources and Water, Craig Wallace, today encouraged residents of Obi Obi 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.

“Obi Obi is reportedly the name of a prominent Indigenous clan leader, also known as Ubi Ubi or Wubi Wubi,” Mr Wallace said.

“The name is also closely associated with a deep waterhole near the junction of Obi Obi Creek and the Mary River.”

“The name Obi Obi appears to have been recorded by Stephen Simpson (1793-1869) homeopath and Commissioner for Crown Lands for the Moreton district,” Mr Wallace said.

The place names surrounding the Obi Obi area also have Indigenous origins.

·Coolabine is an Aboriginal word for ‘place of koalas’.

·Bulimba comes from the Yuggera language meaning place of the magpie lark or peewee.

·Booroobin is derived from ‘booroothabbin’, possibly from the Kabi language, meaning a forest oak tree, but also claimed to mean ‘scrub possum’ in the Maleny area.

·Belli Creek is derived from Kabi language for "belai" or "billah" indicating she oak tree (Casuarina Glauca).

Other interesting place names include:

Miallo – an Aboriginal word indicating wild country

Julatten – an Aboriginal word for small creek

Lake Eacham – Eacham is reportedly an Aboriginal word meaning big spring

Lake Barrine – Barrine is a corruption of “barrang”, an Aboriginal word indicating big water.

Malanda – an Aboriginal word indicating the stream known as the Upper Johnstone River, possibly with the connotation little stream with big stones.

Millaa Millaa – a corruption of “millai millai, possibly from the Yindinji language indicating a fruit bearing plant Eleagnus latifolia.

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."

Media inquiries: Clare Gillic, Minister's Office, 3896 3688.