In the wake of the recent announcement to rename Huntly to Moist, the long-term residents of Jackass Flat are at it again, circulating a petition to rename their suburb.
Long the butt of many underhanded jokes, residents are sick of being ridiculed by outsiders for the name. It doesn’t affect self-esteem, either- house prices in the suburb are approximately $10,000 lower than in neighbouring suburbs that people don’t want to live in for more traditional reasons.
It has been suggested that there is opposition within the Council to any name change, supposedly for some past slight by one of the residents. Still, the major obstacle to date has been a lack of agreement from locals on why the name needs to change and what to change it to.
“I’ve been putting up with this for years,” said local business owner “Mad” Murray Hatt. “Whenever I get an email, I hope it’s a new customer. Instead, it’s just someone who googled that old prank show and wrote to me to ask if our suburb name is real. It’s infuriating.”
Others have more zoological reasons. “The name is simply inaccurate,” states self-styled historian Nathan Seat. “Jackasses are the male of the donkey species, but we have evidence that the gold diggers in the area were very fond of their donkeys of both genders.” When asked if this reporter could see the evidence, Mr Seat turned red and stopped talking.
There are some whose objections to the name take an unexpected turn.
“It’s not even a real flat, is it?” asks Kerry Backhauser, a retired engineer. “There’s a hill right in the bit around Crane Street, and the whole thing is covered in trees. There’s a series of creeks and ponds; it’s closer to a self-flushing system than some plain.”
The circulators of the latest petition have decided to take a different approach. In the past, signatures have been collected to ask the Council to change the name, but this time they’re collecting suggestions for a new title from the residents. Top contenders at this stage include Donkey’s Knob, Digger’s Sump and Flushing Reservoir.
The Council has stated that they will not respond until a formal petition is lodged. However, after this reporter read the suggested names over the phone, one council employee could hear chuckling in the background.
“Donkey’s Knob?” he said, “Yeah, that’ll stick it to Uncle Jerry. Let’s go with that one.”
More to come.
