Пальм-Айленд: География, История и Культура Квинсленда

Locality consisting of a group of islands in Queensland, Australia
the locality

Palm Island is a locality consisting of an island group of 16 islands, split between the Shire of Hinchinbrook and the Aboriginal Shire of Palm Island, in Queensland, Australia. The locality coincides with the geographical entity known as the Palm Island group, also known as the Greater Palm group, originally named the Palm Isles. However, the term "Palm Island" is most often used to refer to the main island, Great Palm Island, the largest island in the group and the only one with a significant population of permanent residents, most of whom are Aboriginal. The island is also known by the name "Bwgcolman", meaning "one people from many groups", derived from an Aboriginal language of one of the earliest groups of Aboriginal people removed from the mainland and settled there from 1918 onwards, during its use as an Aboriginal reserve. The term "Palm Island" is sometimes used to refer to the island group, sometimes the Aboriginal Shire, and sometimes Great Palm Island, but as most of the other islands are uninhabited, the majority of sources are actually referring to Great Palm only, or to the Aboriginal Shire Council. Orpheus Island has a tourist resort and research facility, and is the only one with a well developed tourist industry.

There are 16 islands that make up the Greater Palm group, 12 of them named. and the Greater Palm group. The majority of the islands are micro islands; the most notable are Great Palm Island (the largest and only one with a permanent population), Fantome Island, and Orpheus Island. The ocean surrounding the islands is part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, where extraction and fishing are regulated. Neighbouring islands outside the Palm group include Rattlesnake Island, which is used for Air Force bombing practice, and Magnetic Island, an island suburb of Townsville. The nearest island to the group is Pandora Reef. Table 1 shows the micro islands, known as rocks, and their Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) designations. + Table 1. Micro islands known as Rocks in the group   <none>

Lying in the tropical zone, the islands' climate is tropical and the area is vulnerable to cyclones.

The Manbarra people are the traditional owners of Great Palm and nearby islands. In Manbarra beliefs the Palm Island group were formed in the Dreamtime from the broken up fragments of an ancestral spirit, Rainbow Serpent. Manbarra (also known as Wulgurukaba) is a language of the Palm Island region, which lies within the local government boundaries of the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council. In the Hinchinbrook shire, the traditional owners of Orpheus Island were the Nywaigi, while the Warakamai inhabited Hinchinbrook Island. It is estimated that the population of the island at the time of Cook's visit was about 200 Manbarra people. Cook sent some of his men to Palm Island and "they returned on board having met with nothing worth observing". It was regarded as a penal settlement, with people being sent there for perceived wrongdoing, and soon it became the largest government Aboriginal reserve in Queensland. St George's Anglican Church was built in 1931 from palm leaves and grass (approx ). On Wednesday 4 July 1935, a new timber St George's Anglican Church was opened and dedicated by Bishop John Feetham. During World War II, the Naval Air Station Palm Island (aka Palm Island Airfield) was built at Wallaby Point in 1943 by the US Navy’s 55 Construction Battalion (Seabees). It was a seaplane maintenance facility with a concrete slipway which was predominantly used to serve PBY Catalina flying boats. St Anthony's Catholic Church in the Parish of St Anne was blessed and opened on Sunday 6 August 1961 by Bishop H. E. Ryan. It was designed and built from stone by Townsville consulting engineers, Ariotti and Norman. It is at 26 Banfield Drive (within the grounds of the Catholic school, ). The women's dormitory closed in 1967 and was demolished in 1969. The children's dormitories were officially closed on 5 December 1975.

In 1999 the Queensland Government apologised and gave compensation each to former Palm Islander employees in recompense for underpaid wages between 1975 and 1986. The payment was ordered by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in a case first brought to the commission by seven Palm Islanders in 1986.

On 19 November 2004, Palm Island resident Mulrunji (known as Cameron Doomadgee while alive), aged 36 or 37, After the post mortem report said that the cause of death was severe internal injuries, riots occurred, and as a result, a number of people were charged with offences. with a record class action settlement of awarded to victims in May 2018. The raids were found by the court to be "racist" and "unnecessary, disproportionate" with police having "acted in these ways because they were dealing with an Aboriginal community". (which controls the sea waters around the islands), despite the opposition of, at least some, of the people of Palm Island. On 24 September 1998 the Manbarra elders passed a resolution opposing the farms on the basis of;
"the historical and cultural significance of the Juno Bay site for both the Manbarra and Bwgcolman Peoples, the sense of trespass on traditional ownership rights, concerns that the cultural connection to the area would slip away and a strong feeling that the provision of a small number of employment opportunities offered by the pearling operations would not adequately compensate the damage to cultural values." Subsequently, the Park Authority refused to extend the pearl farming permits and Crimp took action before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to have this decision reversed. On 15 March 2004 the Tribunal agreed that the permits should be terminated but allowed the existing pearling operations to continue to 1 December 2005. This decision was substantially upheld by the Federal Court on 21 October 2004.

At the , Palm Island had 2,455 residents, of whom 74.5% identify as Australian Aboriginal and 12.8% identify as Torres Strait Islander. The Indigenous population generally identify with either the Bwgcolman (descendants of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people removed to Palm Island from throughout Queensland by the authorities, or Manbarra (original inhabitants) people. Compared with other parts of Australia, the Palm Island community is young, with 32.0% under 15 and only 3.3% over 64, and more religious. The most common responses for religion were Catholic 50.4%, Anglican 19.4%, Other Protestant 8.5%, Baptist 5.0% (total 91.2% Christian) and No Religion 8.1% (compared with 29.2% for Queensland). The Sisters of Our Lady Help of Christians established St Michael's Catholic Convent in 1934. They established a temporary Catholic school in October 1934 with 97 students, but a lack of funds prevented the establishment of a permanent Catholic school until 1938. St Michael's Catholic School was blessed on Sunday 24 July 1938 by the Apostolic Delegate Giovanni (John) Panico. In 1945, the Sisters of Our Lady Help of Christians were replaced by the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. In 1969, the school was relocated as it was in the way of the development of the airport. From 1979 to 1991, the school was under lay leadership, before the Sisters of the Good Samaritan took over in 1992. Palm Island Provisional School opened in 1938 for the children of the white officials on the island. It closed in 1970. In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 249 students with 30 teachers and 28 non teaching staff (23 full time equivalent). It includes a special education program. In 2018, the school had an enrolment of 101 students with 8 teachers and 13 non teaching staff (12 full time equivalent).

Sealink Queensland runs a ferry every day from Townsville to Great Palm Island each day of the week except Tuesday, with the journey taking around an hour and 15 minutes. There is also a daily ferry and barge from Lucinda. Palm Island Airport is on Great Palm Island and is operated by the shire council. Hinterland Aviation operates several flights on each weekday between 7am and 4:30pm, and Townsville Helicopters operates on demand helicopter flights to and from Palm Island, also from Townsville Airport. There is a daily scheduled helicopter flight from Townsville to the luxury resort on Orpheus Island and back, and private helicopter charter flights are available from Townsville, Cairns or other nearby facilities.

In the locality of Palm Island, only Orpheus Island has a well developed tourist industry, based around a private luxury resort, the Orpheus Island Lodge. Some attempts have been made to develop a tourist industry on Great Palm Island, but these have met with limited success. Although the island has tropical rainforest and is rich in diverse flora and fauna, is close to the Great Barrier Reef and its waters abound with tropical fish, making it an ideal spot for eco tourism, there have been concerns owing to its troubled history and social problems, and its residents need to be ready to embrace the idea of a possible flood of visitors. There are, however some facilities and accommodation on the large island for tourists, such as Klub Kuda. The Palm Island Motel is operated by the council.

Iris Clay (1936–1979) and her husband Frederick William (Fred, or Freddie) Clay (1927–1983) were Indigenous leaders and activists who fought for equality for the people of Palm Island. Iris worked for the Aboriginal Legal Service on Palm Island, and was a founding member as well as director of Aboriginal Hostels Limited. "Freddie and Ivy (sic) Clay" were recorded as having been moved to Palm Island in 1935 from Cloncurry. Ivy arrived with her parents and some, but not all, of her siblings in the 1930s. At the age of 15, Fred escaped to the mainland, and got as far as Ingham before he was captured at gunpoint and returned to the reserve. Fred became a boxer around 1950, participating in a match at the Brisbane Stadium in May 1950 (recorded as aged 19?). He was an activist by 1969, when Aboriginal people were not allowed on the main street. Fred became a councillor on Palm Island Council, including a stint as chairman from 1973 to 1974. He was president of the council at the time of its sacking by the Bjelke Petersen government in July 1978,

Bill Rosser, aka B. R. Rosser (13 May 1927 – May 2002), author of This is Palm Island (1978), Return to Palm Island (1994) and many other books, was also a union organiser. He visited Palm Island at the invitation of Iris Clay (whom he had met at the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in Townsville) in 1974, and was shocked at the extent to which the life of Aboriginal people was prescribed by the Queensland laws. Rosser, Fred Clay Clay and Rosser were subsequently deported from the island. Rosser later produced another publication for Aboriginal people, called Black Knight, in Brisbane (1975).