Forgotten Town Back on the Map

For seven years, it has been the town that bureaucracy forgot. Wiped from government records by a clerical error, the remote Australian township of Gununa has been invisible to Canberra since it was missed off the 1996 census. The existence of the township - the main settlement on...
For seven years, it has been the town that bureaucracy forgot. Wiped from government records by a clerical error, the remote Australian township of Gununa has been invisible to Canberra since it was missed off the 1996 census.

The existence of the township - the main settlement on Mornington Island in northern Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria - was acknowledged last week when the Queensland government's innovation department visited as part of a plan to introduce mobile phone coverage on the island.

Slightly larger than Anglesey, the island has a population of 1,114, most of whom are Aborigines.

The Australian bureau of statistics has promised to take account of the town.

© Guardian News & Media 2008
Published: 4/10/2003
 
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