Palm Island

Palm Island, or Palm as it is also known, is a 70.9km2 island situated 65 km north-east from Townsville in north Queensland near Magnetic Island and is the largest of the 11 islands in the Palm Island group.

Palm has a very sad history as its sole purpose commencing in 1918, was to ‘rehome’ nearly 2000 forcibly removed ‘troublesome’ people who belonged to 68 indigenous and tribal groups. This was due to the Australian Government policies of segregation and enforced settlements.

Palm island is the traditional country of the Manburra people. Collectively the community identifies as the BWGCOLMAN People, an indigenous term meaning people from many places [under the sun.]

Catherine Freeman’s maternal great-grandparents were exiled from their home to Palm Island in 1925, and their grand-daughter, Catherine’s mother, was born there in 1939.

As recent as the 1960’s Australia’s first people were forcibly removed from their homes and families and punished for various reasons including usage of their own language and culture.

Today’s Palm Island community of 4000 still despair their history of systemic disregard held under an authoritative system arguably driven by hatred, loathing, and racism.

Palm Island is a place of overabundant natural tropical beauty, however its devastating community issues dictate the landscape which is diminishing the islands potential for growth, sustainability and prosperity.

In terms of access to and from the mainland, Palm Island is serviced daily by planes and 3 times a week by Sunferries passenger ferry from Townsville, a freight service from Townsville and combined passenger and freight service from Lucinda.

Palm Island has gained notoriety in more recent times for the 2004 civil unrest which occurred following the death in custody of Mulrunji in November and the burning down of the police station and court house where the death occurred. In 2007 Senior Sergeant Hurley was the first Australian police office to be charged over an indigenous death in custody, however, was later acquitted.

According to Wikipedia, Palm “suffers from chronic alcohol, drug and domestic abuse, has an unemployment rate of 90% and an average life expectancy of 50 years.

Nearly 50-60% of Palm’s population are under the age of 20 and life expectancy is sadly 15-20 years below the national average.

In March 2008 the ABS identified Palm as being the 4th most disadvantaged community in Australia, based on census data, via a series of four measures, called socio-economic indexes for areas (seifa), comparing the relative social and economic conditions of cities, towns and suburbs across Australia, by various indicators such as education, vocational skill, economic resource, employment, car and home ownership.

The population of Palm Island has a young age distribution, characterised by high fertility and premature mortality, with 35.7% of the population under the age of 14 years and a median age of 22 years (Census 2006).

It is the well being and future of Palm Island's children that is at the very heart of CFF.