Whilst it might be true that not everyone who voted "No" in The Voice Referendum is racist, it is certainly true that every racist voted "No". It is also true that any reputation that Australia might have had as being an easy going nation has been burned like a kerosine fuelled magnesium fire, in that in the last few weeks especially, Australia is now visibly more nasty and racist.
Yet another example to add as evidnence that the racists have all been emboldened, was the naming of one of the new stations on the Sydney Metro extension. Even though just two stations up the line there will be a station called Barangaroo, it is the name Gadigal Station which will be located in Sydney's CBD beneath Pitt and Castlereagh Streets that has really brough out the hate filled racists, like mother to that kerosine fuelled magnesium flame.
The fact that this extension will take commuters under the harbour to Chatswood in just 13 minutes, is neither here nor there. It is purely the fact that this this station has been given an indigenous name, which has brought people out to spit bile and acid.
One of the usual methods of naming stations would be to name it after the suburb that it is in. When this station is opened, there will be eight stations within the suburb of Sydney; those being: Barangaroo, Martin Place, Gadigal, Town Hall, Wynyard, Circular Quay, St James, and Museum. You will note that Central/Sydney Terminal is not one of those, as this is actually in the suburb of Strawberry Hills.
Thus, this demonstrates the first problem of naming a station. When there is only one in a suburb/city, then the name is obvious but when there is more than one (or eight), it becomes more difficult to let people know where they are.
The next available option would be to name the station after the street that it is on. The obvious choice would be to call the station Pitt St Station, expect that Pitt St as one of the long streets of central Sydney, is 2.5km long. Also, it does not help that there already are three stations on Pitt St; those being Circular Quay, Town Hall and Central (which isn't even in Sydney). Naming the station after the vague and long location of Pitt St is equally daft.
Most people with some quanta of common sense would prefer a station to be name after the specific location it is in but when that isn't possible, then the naming of railway stations becomes really difficult really quickly.
Melbourne has this problem everywhere; mostly this is because Melbourne towards the centre of the city has good overlay of both trains and trams. Melburnians who live closer to the city are much more spoiled for choice than Sydney Siders are. Melbourne has railway stations called Southern Cross which isn't a place; Melbourne Central which is named after a shopping centre and has been renamed twice since it opened from Museum to Daimaru to Melbourne Central; then there are stations in Melbourne called Jewel Station and Batman Station which also aren't places.
If we look overseas, Grand Central Terminal in New York isn't named after a place, the nearest Underground station to Trafalgar Square is Charing Cross which also isn't named a place, and Paris has such station names as Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Reunion et cetera, which are also not named after places.
The same kinds of people who will hide behind sock puppet Name 8 Digit accounts (John88483756) are likely to have an Australian Flag, or a picture of someone like Benito Mussolini, or perhaps most laughably of all, the crest of their favourite rugby league team such as the Parramatta Eels or the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles.
In the part of the world where I live, from Marayong to Parramatta, the places are named after a Dharug word, an internment camp, the Seven Hills of Rome, another Dharug word, a place in Lancashire where witch trials were held, an explorer, a brewery, and then another Dharug word.
Maybe its just a rich people thing in places like Bondi or Coogee, where they have the luxury to complan about indigenous names. It must be really frightening to live in a city which has places named Waitara, Waroongah, Warringah, Cabramatta, Parramatta, Bondi, Coogee, Cronulla, Warrawee, Toongabbie, et cetera et cetera et cetera, without going complete apoplectic.
It could also be that I am just too dog ignorant to see why this should cause such offence. Naming an Australian place after the Australian Australian word for that place, seems like kind of a no brainer to me. More generally when it comes to the naming of things, people get used to it really quickly. As much as it annoys the racists, of whom I will take as a confession that they are actively too ignorant and stupid to work out where they are, the name Gadigal Station will in time not be named after the location, it will be the location. "Near Gadigal Station" will appear on stationery and directions within weeks of it opening.
Quite frankly the name Gadigal, which is named after the traditional Eora name that the station is actually located in, seems about as good as any. However, as this is the new emboldened racist cry-baby twenty-first century, then an aboriginal name for a place just seems to be really infuriating to some people.
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