WITH the bicentenary of Fremantle’s colonial settlement just five years away, Fremantle council has started preparing for the anniversary – but is being a bit shy about revealing what it has planned.

The council’s Towards 2029 working group, whose purpose is to assess and propose ideas around the bicentenary, met in May and June this year, but apart from some scant information from updates in council agendas the City wouldn’t provide any details.

“It would be inappropriate to release information before the Towards 2029 Working Group finishes this first stage of work,” a council spokesperson said. 

According to the council’s groups register, Towards 2029 was supposed to have completed its scoping two to three months after forming. 

At its June meeting, the group discussed a project titled “Manjaree Hub”, the Noongar name for the Arthur Head area.

That would be consistent with the May meeting, which flagged a “long-term vision and strategic plan for Roundhouse and Arthur Head Reserve.

“The necessity of enhancing the culturally significant Manjaree|Arthur Head Reserve precinct to include and benefit the Whadjuk community and broader First Nation people was identified as a priority in the meeting,” one of the updates revealed.

It foreshadowed a discussion at the next meeting about “an EOI process for tenancies of City managed assets in the Manjaree area”, but the next update doesn’t elaborate.

• Freo council has flagged changes to Arthur Head for the city’s 2029 bicentennary which would be inclusive and benefit Whadjuk Noongars. File photo

Referendum

Co-designer of the Uluru statement from the Heart and Whadjuk traditional owner Joe Collard said the bicentenary would be an important year, especially off the back of the Voice to Parliament referendum.

Mr Collard said healing and recovery needed to happen for First Nations people, and an important step could be Freo’s engagement with the Whadjuk People’s Indigenous Land Use Agreement. 

“Fremantle continues to maintain a colonial appearance that is uninviting” he said.

“Local government could demonstrate good will and good leadership by returning sacred area to their traditional owners who could revitalise sites like Cantonment Hill.” 

Fremantle Society president John Dowson said the bicentenary “should be a celebration of bringing people together and not pushing people apart”. 

Mr Dowson suggested the government create a longer-term major project for the entire community to appreciate.

 “Something positive for the state” such as revitalising waterways in Western Australia to provide “clean water and healthy rivers for us to go back and fish in and swim in”.

The City of Albany will be commemorating its bicentenary of settlement three years before the rest of the state in 2026 with a year-long celebration of shared history in the South West region. 

Albany’s community services director Nathan Watson described Albany 2026 as “a year of activity that is sensitively curated to tell the history of place and people associated with the community we now know as Albany, from the deep past to recent decades”.

“[The council’s] journey to Albany 2026 is important to the success of the 2029 bicentenary and the premier and state ministers have been briefed on Albany’s approach and are very supportive”.

A Cook government spokesperson said: “More information on how WA will acknowledge this significant anniversary will be available in due course.”

by MARGOT REID