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With the removal of Captain Cook’s statue, Cairns is ready for a new Australian symbol. A giant boomerang would be a fantastic attraction as tourism to the region revives.

I will have a very Big Boomerang in the Cairns Festival Parade tomorrow.

This has been planned since 2017 when I wanted to get a Big Boomerang beside the Captain Cook statue as an act of reconciliation and to showcase our Indigenous heritage.

Now the Captain Cook statue, which was on the list of Australia’s big icons, has been removed from Cairns, it is important as a tourist city that we get another big icon. So my boomerang is the next big thing.

Indigenous Symbol

It is 5.5m wide and about 3m high. Either this boomerang, or one that the city comes together to build, could be it. It will be housed in my Munganbana Reef and Rainforest Aboriginal Art Gallery at 33 Lake St Cairns after the Cairns Festival Parade if it fits in.

It was made for the parade to get the city interested in the project. It is important, because of all the big icons around the nation, none represents Aboriginal heritage. Indigenous tourism is a big drawcard for Far North Queensland.

I am hoping that the people of Cairns, the council, the Queensland government, businesses and of course our First Nations People will be excited and get behind this project. We need to get a committee together to work on this project of the Next Big Thing or the Big Boomerang as the big icon for Cairns.

I will have my Big Boomerang on a tow truck and 40 children from St Gerard Majella School, and some teachers and parents will be joining me. The children have painted their own small boomerangs for the occasion. I will be playing a number of songs about boomerangs during the parade, including a remix of Abba’s Bang-A-Boomerang, so it will be a fun occasion.

This is part of what I sent in my application to Council to have a float:

Many Australian towns have big icons. I have long wanted to have a big icon in Cairns of a big boomerang, and I have been walking in the Cairns Festival Parade with a big boomerang in previous years. This time I have an extra big boomerang to put on a float.

In the list of icons above, you will see that the statue of Captain Cook was listed for Cairns. Now that is gone, we need to replace it with something, and why not celebrate Indigenous culture?

“The Next Big Thing” or big icon is a tourist attraction. We have the Big Gumboot, the Big Pineapple, the Big Banana, the Big Prawn etc. Now we need the Big Boomerang. I think it will showcase Cairns and draw visitors to our wonderful city.

The Cairns Festival will be the first to showcase it. We need cultural tourism and we need tourists to COME BACK to our tourist paradise.