Riverland woman’s final wish to rename Goat Island for Ruby Hunter
A Riverland woman diagnosed with cancer says her final wish is to rename the Goat Island birthplace of her lifelong friend and renowned performer Ruby Hunter. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this story contains images and names of deceased persons.
Goat Island in the Murray River National Park on the outskirts of Renmark was named by long-term island resident James Neville Daly in the early 1900s but a Riverland group has been tirelessly campaigning for four years to have it re-named in honour of the late Ruby Hunter. Hunter was posthumously inducted into the AWMA 2025 Honour Roll and the National Indigenous Music Hall of Fame in 2020.
Now one of the key campaigners is making a renewed push for the change with Hunter’s family and friends saying the musician was born on Goat Island where the family was living in 1955 as Aboriginal people were not allowed access to hospitals to give birth at the time.
Chair of the Ruby Hunter Foundation Cheryl Norris was recently diagnosed with liver cancer, which she said has made her support for the bid to rename Goat Island more urgent.
“I’m going to push myself to try and keep going to see this out and show that Auntie Ruby deserves this for what she has done for the Riverland,” Norris said.
“Her older brother Uncle Wally and Uncle Jeff are also dealing with a lot of health issues as well. We’ve got to push for Uncle Wally and he’s hoping he can last long enough to see this happen too.”
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Norris and other community members have been rallying to get the island name changed since early 2022, which prompted a consultation process by the Department for Housing and Urban Development in February, 2025.
But while the consultation over changing the name of Goat Island to Ruby Hunter Island closed in April 2025 there still had been no decision made.
A department spokesperson said the consultation process review had taken longer than anticipated due to a “significant number” of submissions that covered a range of opinions.
The outcome report was expected to be prepared by the next state government following the state election in March.
Norris said Hunter “did everything possible to keep Renmark and the Riverland on the map” and deserved to be honoured for her contributions to the area.
Having both experienced homelessness in their youth, Hunter and her long-term musician partner Uncle Archie Roach fostered more than 30 young Aboriginal children at-risk of homelessness in the Riverland region.
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Hunter was also an outspoken advocate for the rights of women and children experiencing domestic violence and a voice for the Stolen Generation.
When touring globally with Roach, Hunter would “always preach about the Riverland and her community”.
“She had a love of the people, and not only her people, but every different type of denomination or religion, the colour of their skin didn’t matter. She was just there to help anybody and everybody,” Norris said
“I would not be the Erawirung woman that I am today if it hadn’t been for Auntie Ruby pushing me to accept my heritage.”
Following Hunter’s death in 2010, the Ruby Hunter Foundation was established by Roach to create opportunities for Aboriginal people through the promotion, celebration and support of arts and culture.
Ruby Hunter Foundation member Rosemary Gower said the foundation had “raised lots of money to assist talented Aboriginal people to achieve a career on the stage”.
Gower said she is “not prepared to give up” on the push to rename Goat Island.
“I really think that Ruby deserves to have that acknowledgement for the woman she was, and her advocacy against domestic violence and for her people,” Gower said.
“But she didn’t only touch the lives of her own people — she touched lives of people everywhere she went. She was a very genuine person.”
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