Bundaberg

Bundaberg is a city in Queensland, Australia. The city lies on the Burnett River, approximately 385 km north of the state capital, Brisbane and 15 km inland from the coast. Bundaberg is a major centre within Queensland's Wide Bay-Burnett region.

The city name is thought to be an artificial combination of bunda, the Kabi Aboriginal word denoting important man and the German suffix berg indicating mountain. The city is colloquially known as "Bundy".

The local Aboriginal group is the Gurang Gurang (goo-rang goo-rang) people.

Bundaberg has sister city agreements with Nanning, China and Settsu City, Japan.

History
Bundaberg as a European township was founded by timbergetters Bob and George Stewart and Lachlan Tripp in 1867. The first farmers in the area arrived soon after. Timber was the first established industry in Bundaberg. In 1868 a sawmill was erected on the Burnett River downstream from the Steuart and Watson holdings. The city was surveyed, laid out and named Bundaberg in 1870.

Experimental sugar cane growing in the district followed and a successful industry grew. The first sugar mill was opened in 1882. The early sugar industry in Bundaberg was the result of the semi-slave labour carried out by Kanakas. Bundaberg was gazetted a town in 1902 and a city in 1913.

The naming of Bundaberg's streets was a job for its surveyors, of which there were three. It was local resident and District Surveyor John Charlton Thompson who received the directive to survey a plot an area on the South side of the river. He was assisted by unregistered surveyor assistants James Ellwood and Alfred Dale Edwards.

Edwards preferred using aboriginal names. It is a common misconception that the main street was incorrectly gazetted in the Bundaberg Mail as "Bourbong" instead of "Bourbon" street and the name persisted. However, Rackemann conducted a survey of letterheads printed between 1904 and 1957. Up until 1940 the count for both names was near enough to equal, with in some cases companies carrying both spelling variations in successive years. However, by 1941 there is no reference to "Bourbon" street. It is thought more likely that Edwards named it after 'Boorbong', the local name given to a series of waterholes near the Rubyanna area. (Now East Bundaberg) This is borne out by farmer Robert Strathdee's farming selection in the vicinity of the watering holes being recorded on early survey maps as 'Boorbung'.

Burnett Sawmill operated for over 100 years at its East Bundaberg location. It was the oldest operating sawmill in the Bundaberg area. On 26 May 2010, Burnett Sawmill officially ceased operating.

Industry
Subtropical Bundaberg is dependent to a large extent on the local sugar industry. Extensive sugar cane fields are found throughout the district and value-adding operations, such as the milling and refinement of sugar, and its packaging and distribution, are located around the city. A local factory that manufactured sugar-cane harvesters was closed down after it was taken over by the US multinational corporation Case New Holland. Most of the raw sugar is exported. A bulk terminal for the export of sugar is located on the Burnett River east of Bundaberg. Another of the city's exports is Bundaberg Rum, made from the sugar cane by-product molasses. Bundaberg is also home to beverage producer Bundaberg Brewed Drinks.

Commercial fruit and vegetable production is also significant: tomatoes, zucchinis, capsicums, legumes and watermelons are grown in abundant quantities.

Tourism
Tourism is an important industry in Queensland, and Bundaberg is known as the 'Southern Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef'. The city lies near the southern end of the reef in proximity to Lady Elliot and Lady Musgrave Islands. The Mon Repos turtle rookery is located on the coast just east of Bundaberg, as is the town of Bargara, an increasingly popular holiday and retirement destination.

The northern bank of the Burnett River between the Don Tallon and Burnett bridges is home to a colony of flying foxes. The bats leave the river at dusk and fan out all over the city to look for food. Tours of the famous Bundaberg Rum distillery and attractions at the Botanic Gardens are also popular with tourists. The Mystery Craters, 35 un-explained water-filled holes in the ground, discovered in 1971 at South Kolan, are also a tourist attraction.

Nearby beaches are popular with both locals and tourists. Moore Park, to the city's north, boasts 20 km of golden sandy beach. Beaches on the southern side of the Burnett River are (from north to south) the Oaks Beach, Mon Repos, Nielsen Park, Bargara Beach, Kellys Beach, Innes Park and Elliott Heads. Mon Repos attracts tourists. Kellys Beach is popular with families, particularly in summer months. Cania Gorge National Park, Deepwater National Park, Eurimbula National Park and Kincuna National Park, located in the Bundaberg region are popular with campers and bush-lovers.

Schools
In the city, there are three public high schools, Bundaberg North State High School, Bundaberg State High School (the second-oldest high school in Queensland that is still open) and Kepnock State High School. There are also three main private secondary schools: Shalom Catholic College, St. Luke's Anglican School, and Bundaberg Christian College. There are many public and private primary schools such as St. Marys Catholic Primary school.

Climate
Bundaberg has a subtropical climate with hot summers and mild winters. The climate is the most equable of any Australian town or city and ranked 5th on a worldwide comparison. The mean daily maximum temperature is highest in January at 30.3 Celsius, and the mean daily minimum is lowest in July at 10.0 degrees Celsius. The coldest temperature recorded in Bundaberg is 0.8 degrees Celsius, and some inland areas of Bundaberg sometimes experience frosts. The mean annual rainfall is 1141.0 millimetres.

Transport
Bundaberg is situated at the end of the Isis Highway (State Route 3), approximately 50 km east of its junction with the Bruce Highway. Many long-distance bus services also pass through the city. Bundaberg is also served by Bundaberg Airport, with flights to Brisbane and Lady Elliot Island. Adjacent to the airport is a campus of Central Queensland University. The city is home to the Jabiru Aircraft Company, which designs and manufactures a range of small civil utility aircraft. Bundaberg Port is located 20 kilometres northeast of the city, at the mouth of the Burnett River. The port is a destination for ships from Australia and overseas. It is predominantly used for shipping raw sugar and other goods related to that industry such as Bundaberg Rum.

For information on rail transport in Bundaberg, see Bundaberg railway station.

Notable residents
Well-known current and former inhabitants of Bundaberg include:
 * Bert Hinkler, pioneer aviator
 * Gladys Moncrieff, singer
 * Vance Palmer, writer
 * Don Tallon, Australian Cricketer
 * Mal Meninga, legendary rugby league footballer
 * Antonio Kaufusi - rugby league footballer
 * Chris Sarra, 2004 Queenslander of the Year
 * Michelle Steele, Winter Olympian at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
 * Clint Bolton, football (soccer) player
 * Troy Elder, Hockey player
 * Donald Smith, operatic tenor
 * Steve Goodall, cyclist, 1978 Commonwealth Games Bronze Medalist, 1976 Olympian
 * Tom Miles, professional athlete/sprinter, Winner 1927 Stawell Gift, 1928 World Champion.
 * Mitchell Langerak, football (soccer) player
 * Allan Davis, Road racing cyclist, 2009 Tour Down Under Winner
 * Jayant Patel, the alleged "Doctor Death" of the Bundaberg Base Hospital.

Representatives
Current Former
 * Jack Dempsey, (Liberal National Party), State member for Bundaberg
 * Paul Neville (National Party of Australia), Federal member for Hinkler
 * Prime Ministers Andrew Fisher and Frank Forde both represented Federal electorates that included Bundaberg, though neither was from there originally.

Sports
Most major Australian sporting codes are played in Bundaberg, including; Rowing, Basketball, Cricket, Golf, Lawn bowls, Netball, Tennis, Rugby league, Soccer, Hockey, Australian Rules Football, and Softball.

Tennis
The Bundaberg & District Tennis Senior Association operates eleven floodlit clay courts in Drinan Park, Bundaberg West at the corner of George & Powers Streets. Competition tennis is played all year round. The Bundaberg & District Junior Tennis Association operates five artificial grass courts, and two granite courts, at 69B George Street in Bundaberg South.

Rowing
Bucca Weir, east of Bundaberg, is home to the state rowing Championships every three years.

Australian Rules Football
Bundaberg has two current clubs playing in the AFL Wide Bay competition. The other clubs in the competition are:
 * Across The Waves Bundaberg Eagles (merger of North Bundaberg and Souths/ATW Magpies)
 * Brothers Bulldogs (formerly West Bundaberg)
 * Hervey Bay Bombers
 * Maryborough Bears
 * Bay Power

Soccer
Bundaberg is home to the Bundaberg Spirit state soccer team. They participate in the Queensland State League against other teams across Queensland.

Public health problems
Bundaberg attracted national media attention in 2005 due to the alleged incompetence of Bundaberg Base Hospital surgical director Jayant Patel (also known as "Doctor Death"), who was implicated in the deaths of up to 87 patients.

Bundaberg was also the location of another health-related disaster in January 1928, when 12 children died shortly after receiving injections of diphtheria vaccine. At the time, the vaccine was created by the toxin-antitoxin, or TAT process, where diphtheria toxin was combined with antibodies from horses, which served to eliminate the toxicity of the toxin while leaving it intact enough to stimulate a long-lasting immunological response in the recipient. The vaccine, produced by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories in Melbourne – world renowned for the quality of its work and products – was dispensed to many of the city's children from late 1927 without incident. However, because of fears that the preservative usually included in the TAT preparation might render the vaccine ineffective, it had been left out of the batch supplied to Bundaberg. Unfortunately, the associated warning did not reach the local Medical Officer of Health, Dr Ewing Thomson, and he continued to re-use the batch of vaccine over a period of weeks, including immunising his own son. On 27 January 1928 Thomson inoculated 21 children aged from one to nine years old; over the following 36 hours 18 became very ill and 12 died. One family lost all three of their children in the disaster, and two more families watched two of their children die. Not surprisingly, the ‘Bundaberg tragedy’ or ‘serum tragedy’ – as it became known – created a media sensation both in Australia and around the world, causing a halt in diphtheria immunisation programs as far afield as New Zealand and Cape Town. Given the precarious nature of mass immunisation programs at the time, the Bundaberg tragedy also potentially compromised the careers of the Minister of Health, Dr Sir Neville Howse, and the Director General of Health, Dr (John) Howard Cumpston.

Initial fears that the TAT process had failed to neutralize the diphtheria toxin in this instance were allayed by an Australian Royal Commission. This Commission, headed by the director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Charles Kellaway, found that the vaccine had become contaminated by Staphylococcus aureus, probably from Thomson’s imperfect sterilisation technique. In the Bundaberg heat, these bacteria had multiplied in the vaccine, contaminating the serum with a massive quantity of a different toxin (see toxic shock syndrome). As a result of this finding, the Royal Commission issued a strong recommendation, adopted by all major manufacturers, that all vaccines packaged for administration of multiple doses should incorporate an antibacterial preservative. After testing of various compounds for toxicity and compatibility with the vaccine, the optimal preservative was determined to be thiomersal, which, ironically, has now become controversial due to questions of its own toxicity. By 1931, CSL had replaced the TAT formulation with diphtheria anatoxin (or toxoid), which was claimed to be a safer product.

The Bundaberg tragedy set back the cause of mass immunisation in Australia by several years, and its consequences were remembered for decades in the town. Ewing Thomson stayed in Bundaberg for several years but then left, claiming that the fault lay with CSL’s inadequate labelling rather than his procedures. However, in addition to improving manufacturing of vaccines, the Royal Commission helped raise the profile of medical research in Australia and provided an important intellectual impetus for the future Nobel Prize winning immunologist Macfarlane Burnet, who had conducted key bacteriological work during the investigation.

Radio stations

 * ABC Wide Bay 855 AM/100.1 FM- Due to the terrain of the area, both AM and FM frequencies are used.
 * 4BU 1332 AM (commercial)
 * Sea FM 93.1 (commercial)- Part of the SEA FM network, owned by Macquarie.
 * Hitz FM 93.9 (commercial)-
 * 4DoubleB 96.3 FM (community)
 * 4BCR 94.7 FM (community)
 * 95.5 FM (narrowcast)
 * 97.1 FM (narrowcast)
 * Classic FM 98.5 FM
 * Triple J 99.3 FM
 * ABC Local Radio 100.1 MHz FM
 * Radio National 100.9 FM
 * Rebel FM 106.7 FM (Wide Bay) Australia's largest independent commercial FM radio network

In popular culture
The city has been the location for two film sets, including the 1989 film, The Delinquents, starring Kylie Minogue and the 1977 film, The Mango Tree. Both films were set in and around Bundaberg.