MORE than two centuries ago, Commander Matthew Flinders came across a pristine group of islands at the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, about 125km north of Burketown, naming them after Richard Wellesley, who was known as the Earl of Mornington.
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The 22 islands that make up the Wellesley Group - Sweers, Bentinck and Mornington islands among them - feature windswept beaches lined with sea oaks, rocky outcrops and mangroves, teeming with marine life and important bird breeding habitats.
These days the traditional island home for the 1500 Lardil, Kaiadilt, Yangkaal and Gangalidda people is under threat from all the things that afflict indigenous communities elsewhere - a lack of industry, little employment, paternalistic misdirected services, and a lack of housing and infrastructure, along with a destructive home-brewing industry and reports of petrol-sniffing among children as young as eight.
The newsletter for the Wellesley Islands Aboriginal law justice and governance association, Junkuri Laka, reported in May that 69 people were appearing before the visiting magistrate with some 200 charges between them relating to alcohol possession, breaches of domestic violence orders, property offences including arson and drug use.
There's no pool on the island for children to swim on, leaving them with a shark and crocodile-infested ocean as their only means of cooling off on sultry Gulf days.
Against this background the Mornington Shire Council has been ramping up its efforts to bring recognition and assistance.
Its asbestos awareness campaign culminated in the removal of an old hospital that had been a serious health risk for 15 years and won them a national award from the Asbestos Diseases Research Institute, followed by second place for excellence in collaboration from the Local Government Managers Association.
A jetty redevelopment and foreshore business and recreation precinct proposal is before state and federal funding bodies, to support the 4000 vessels currently operating in local waters but bypassing the island.
In January, Queensland Senator Barry O'Sullivan visited the remote community and promised at the time to return with a government minister.
Not only did he achieve that in May - Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion made his first visit since calling in for parts and a beer as a commercial fisherman in the 1990s - but assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash also came to see for herself what the state of affairs was.
Queensland Country Life's Sally Cripps accompanied the two ministers and Senators Barry O'Sullivan and Matt Canavan on their inspection.
