What possible reason is there for perpetuating the naming of this expanse of water after a British bureaucrat who, by all accounts, never even visited the place?

Awabakal man Shane Frost sums it up: Lake Macquarie had the name Awaba "a long time before the whitefellas came and named it".

This is important.

When the British colonised/invaded the east coast of what is now Australia they came with instructions to negotiate the settlement and access to land with the agreement of the Aborigines. This instruction meant nothing. The British set about forcibly driving the Aborigines off their traditional hunting and agricultural lands, abducting their children, murdering anybody who resisted and renaming places, rivers and landmarks on whim.

The words "delete" and "cancel culture" are used in the article, suggesting that renaming the lake would somehow erase all record of Lachlan Macquarie's existence in Australia. This is nonsense.

Nobody is suggesting that Macquarie be deleted. On the contrary, it is essential that contemporary records of the actions and decisions of Lachlan Macquarie and others involved in the establishment of the British colony be available for scrutiny and judgment.

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It was also implied that Macquarie should not be judged by standards of the past: "Try to understand these characters (like Macquarie) in the time they were in".

Is it seriously suggested that murder, rape, dispossessions and abductions are matters that should be viewed more leniently simply because they happened a couple of hundred years ago? Is it suggested that the British people were not as civilised then as they are now and therefore should not be judged too harshly?

It is a historical fact that frequent warnings were sent from the office of the Colonial Secretary in London to successive governors reminding that the Aborigines, as British subjects, were to be treated fairly and lawfully. It is also historical fact that those warnings were regularly ignored.

Reference is also made to former University of Wollongong archivist and historian Michael Organ, who wrote that, in a secret war against the Aboriginal population launched by Governor Macquarie in 1816, soldiers were "ordered to pursue and fire upon any Aboriginal people who attempted to escape apprehension and that "the non-Aboriginal civilian population was granted permission to 'shoot and kill' Aboriginal people who did not adhere to government decrees".

Indemnification of the white settlers no doubt encouraged the vigilante massacres of Aborigines that followed.

This is not about vilifying Lachlan Macquarie. The lake has borne his name for not even 200 years, whereas it was known by its Indigenous name for millennia.

The lake has special significance for the Awabakal people; for many thousands of years it provided seafood, and no doubt recreation, for them, and going back even further, the Awabakal people lived, hunted, harvested and thrived on the land that is now covered by the lake for many more thousands of years.

Australia is inching towards true recognition of the rights of Aboriginal people. But, as a nation, we are yet to find courage to confront the wrongs of our forebears and to acknowledge the death and misery they caused. Perhaps this comes down to lack of leadership.

Successive governments have tinkered around the edges, usually just throwing money at the problems without any real attempt to bring the majority Australian populace along on a journey of acknowledgement and reconciliation.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd's apology was a positive step, but it was still only words.

We have the blueprint for acknowledgement and true reconciliation. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a modest document that calls for Aboriginal people to be fully recognised in the Australian Constitution; a voice to the federal parliament (a voice to parliament, not a voice in parliament - a vastly different proposition), also included in the constitution; and a Makarrata, or "coming together" with truth-telling to recognise and learn from the past injustices inflicted on Aboriginal people.

We need a government that will accept the Uluru Statement in the spirit in which it was offered and lead us through the truth-telling process. We can then start afresh with our First Nations people as equals.

In the meantime, communities can make small gestures to bridge the divide.

Reverting to the traditional Awabakal name for the lake - Awaba - would be one such gesture.

John Ure is a retired assistant commissioner of the NSW Police. He was NSW Police Liaison Officer to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 1987-1991.

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