Homeless Murris bused out of Cairns

By John Nebauer

BRISBANE -- On Monday, May 16, a group of 24 homeless Murris was stranded on the Wenlock River in the Cape York district after being forced to leave Cairns.

Brendon Baker, managing director of All Round Tours, said that his company had been approached by the Cairns City Council to carry the group to the Lockhart River Community, some 800 km away, but that conditions had left one of the buses stranded with its passengers, while the other bus made its way back towards Cairns.

Baker said that the group had been in high spirits and were looking forward to going home. Cairns Mayor Kevin Byrne said that the group had asked to be moved to the settlement in question, and that the council had organised the buses and provided funds from various Cairns businesses to allow the Salvation Army to transport the group.

However, there are suggestions that the group, which had been living on the Cairns Esplanade, were coerced into going. In particular the presence of police when the Murris were departing seems to indicate that they were not willing participants in the relocation.

The council's motivation seems to have been to improve its “tourist image”. Lockhart River town clerk Bill Baird said that the Human Rights Commission, which has been asked to investigate the incident, should not only look at whether or not the council was negligent.

He said, “It is also a question of whether these people were coerced or harassed to leave Cairns because they were not compatible with the Council's tourist image.”

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