Indigenous resistance hero honoured with Federal seat

By BEN McKAY

Tasmania is set to get its first Indigenous-named electorate in a major shake-up, but not everyone is happy, including the major political parties.

Labor MP Julie Collins opposes the Australian Electoral Commission’s (AEC) plan to rebadge her Tasmanian electorate from Franklin to Tongerlongeter.

The AEC released its redistribution plans on Wednesday, shifting her electorate to take in much of Tasmania’s picturesque east coast.

The new territory overlaps the Oyster Bay nations where Tongerlongeter lived and fought against British colonialisation in the early 19th century.

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Nicholas Clements, a co-author of a biography of the Indigenous leader, says his story is under-appreciated.

“He’s a fitting figure to honour,” Dr Clements said.

Faced with the violent dispossession of lands and people – with hundreds of Indigenous men murdered, and women and girls abducted – Dr Clements said Tongerlongeter led the most “effective frontier resistance campaign in Australian history”.

Eventually, in 1831, his decimated tribe reached an armistice and was exiled to Flinders Island, along with many other Aboriginals, where he again assumed a leadership role.

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“This is a phenomenal individual, someone everybody can look up to – not just Aboriginals – but everyone as this is our shared history,” Dr Clements said.

In its deliberations, the AEC essentially agreed.

“Tongerlongeter’s leadership during the Black War, his role in defending Country, and his enduring significance in Tasmanian history provide strong grounds for recognising his contribution through the naming of an electorate,” the AEC panel wrote.

However, the Liberal and Labor parties don’t believe the seat should be renamed.

Both parties submitted to the AEC that Franklin, named after Sir John Franklin, a British polar explorer and early administrator of Van Dieman’s Land, should be retained.

The Liberals argued keeping Franklin would “minimise voter confusion” while the Labor party submitted a change “lacks compelling justification” given its heritage of over a century of use.

Julie Collins doesn’t support the name change for her electorate of Franklin. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)

Ms Collins confirmed that Franklin remained her preferred title.

“I support the submission that the Labor Party made to the redistribution consultation process, including about a possible name change,” she said.

Dr Clements said he was sympathetic to those viewpoints but the “chequered” history of the current namesake, who kept skeletal remains of Indigenous people, ought to be considered.

“To rename the electorate after this extraordinary resistance fighter, who has this unblemished and storied history, compared to someone like Sir John Franklin, it’s wholly appropriate,” he said.

Independent state Franklin MP Peter George said he was delighted to embrace his new electorate’s name on one proviso.

The proposed changes to Tasmania’s federal electorates. (Susie Dodds/AAP PHOTOS)

“I hope the AEC has discussed this with some of the Aboriginal communities,” he said.

But the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre said the AEC had fallen short.

TAC campaign manager Nala Mansell said honouring Tongerlongeter was fitting but they had been left out of the conversation.

“As we see often, when it comes to any decisions about Aborigines in this state, Aboriginal people are excluded from any type of decision making,” she said.

An AEC spokesman said that it had “engaged, or sought to engage, different local Indigenous groups” prior to the announcement and their views would be received in the consultation period.

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