2023-04-05 Letter to Mayor. Re. Questions on 2023-2025 Commemorations

Adrian Schrinner
Brisbane Lord Mayor
Brisbane City Council
GPO Box 1434
Brisbane Qld 4001

5 April 2023

Dear Lord Mayor,

I will present a paper at the 50th AHA conference (4-6 July), following on from my 2021 AHA presentation. I have attached the abstract for the 2023 paper, the AHA acceptance docket (email), and the 2021 AHA presentation.

My letter is about procedural fairness to allow you to respond before I present my paper. Today, I again followed up with an extensive search of the Council website with the keyword, “Commemoration”. There was an absence of any reference to Brisbane-Queensland Commemoration planning for 2023-2025. This follows my failed project application with the Council in August 2018 (3 documents attached). I invite you to answer the questions,
1. Is the Council planning to make commemoration of…

a. 200 years since the explorer John Oxley and crew of HMS Mermaid surveyed Moreton Bay and the Brisbane River and Moreton Bay (29th November- 6th of December 2023);
b. the arrival on 12 September 1824, to establish the colony at the original location of Humpybong, Redcliffe;
c. the relocation of the colony’s initial encampment on 4 November from Redcliffe to Edenglassie – the first name given to Brisbane;
d. the arrival of Governor Brisbane in Moreton Bay on 23 November for a brief inspection of the colony’s beginnings;
e. the construction of the first permanent colonial building in what became Queensland, the Commissariat Store, believed to have started in December of 1824;
f. centennial of the formation of the Brisbane City Council in 1925, from the amalgamation of shires under the Greater Brisbane plan, links and closes off well the three-year period of significant anniversaries for Queensland;
g. And all associated first nation’s historical narratives?
2. If so, what is the Council planning?
3. Who would be involved in the process, and how are they qualified (in the case of each commemoration)?

Yours faithfully,

Historian, MPHA (Qld), Ph.D. (History) UQ., Grad. Dip. Arts (Philosophy) Melb., Grad. Dip. (Education) UQ.

Featured Image: Story Bridge in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Photo 97004649 / Brisbane © Robert Downer | Dreamstime.com

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Neville Buch

Professional Historian at Professional Historians Association (Queensland) Inc.

Neville Buch (Pronounced Book) Ph.D. is a certified member of the Professional Historians Association (Queensland). Since 2010 he has operated a sole trade business in history consultancy. He was a Q ANZAC 100 Fellow 2014-2015 at the State Library of Queensland. Dr Buch was the PHA (Qld) e-Bulletin, the monthly state association’s electronic publication, and was a member of its Management Committee. He is the Managing Director of the Brisbane Southside History Network.

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