Politician Suggests Victoria And Queensland Change Their Names Due To Link With Colonialism

An Australian politician has raised some eyebrows for suggesting that Victoria and possibly Queensland could change their names due to links with colonialism.

Victoria is named after Queen Victoria, who ruled the British empire until Australia became an independent country in 1901.

Victorian Greens MP Lidia Thorpe, who was also the state's first Indigenous MP, said Victoria's name has links to our colonialist past and we should make it more Australian.

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement in Australia, the Senate candidate reckons it's time to have a conversation about what our states and territories are called.

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Speaking to news.com.au, Ms Thorpe said: "Given we're all talking about the colonial past and how everything's named as a result of invasion of this country, why wouldn't we negotiate that?"

"It may be that it stays the same. But why wouldn't we put that on the table. Maybe we need to be making decisions, changing place names, state names and anything else that causes harm."

When asked whether Queensland should do the same for its links to the British empire, Ms Thorpe said that that should absolutely be a conversation.

She's hoping a treaty will soon be made between the Australian government and First Nation people. Australia is the only country that doesn't have a treaty with its Indigenous citizens.

Lidia Thorpe/Facebook

The MP reckons that it could be a massive opportunity for Australia to grow as a collective because, she says, at the moment we are a divided nation.

"We don't have the same opportunities. I'd like to see the end to the injustice that occurs against Aboriginal people, I'd like to see our environment protected like we used to protect it," she told News Corp.

While experts say it's unlikely Victoria or Queensland will change their names any time soon, it's not as if it's never happened in the world.

When a treaty was signed between the Canadian government and its First Nation people, there were 30 places that changed their names from English to words in the Nisga'a language.

However, they weren't massive jurisdictions that covered millions of people that would take several years of rebranding to make the switch.

Topics: News, Australia

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

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