Government plans to rename a big departmental headquarters because its current name is associated with the First Fleet have been greeted with dismay.
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And changing the name of the huge Sirius Building may need approval by the ACT government because the lease specifies the existing name.
The Department of Health is giving staff at the Sirius Building a vote on what the new name should be so that it "would be better aligned with the department's purpose".
The building is named after HMS Sirius, the flagship of the First Fleet which brought convicts to Botany Bay in 1788.
Its arrival was the start of European colonisation (and so the start of the demise of Indigenous ways of life).
Some public servants have objected to the association with colonisation via the arrival of the First Fleet. It was a "concern", a spokesperson for the agency said.
But the architect of the building said he was "disappointed" at the attempt to rename his creation.
"We cannot deny our history," architect Peter Russell said.
He accepted that some of the results of colonisation were "really appalling". He felt that the Sirius was part of the first invasion but "we shouldn't deny our past".
The building was designed by his architectural practice, May + Russell, specifically to remind people of the pioneering ship.
The building's main meeting room high above the main entrance, for example, projects out into the air resembling the ship's stern. It has five windows on each floor like the stern of the Sirius. The jutting angle is the same slope - all by design.
And so on, throughout the building in the materials - often wood - and the colours - often the blues of both the sky and long oceans between Australia and Portsmouth in England.
The current stunning building replaces the original Sirius Building constructed in 1968.
It was sited in Woden as the first substantial satellite suburb of Canberra.
The explicit decision then was to name buildings and streets after ships in the First, Second and Third Fleets.
There is, for example, Surprize Place (there was a z in the name of the Second Fleet ship). HMS Surprize was owned by slave traders (perhaps all the more reason for a renaming of the place).
The wider suburb itself - Phillip - was named after Arthur Phillip, the first governor of the new colony.
As far as is known, public servants have only objected to the Sirius name and not to that of Scarborough House, the other big building on the health department's "Woden Campus".
HMS Scarborough was in the First and Second Fleets but seems to have escaped the notice of irate public servants.
It's not clear how many of the 4600 employees objected to the Sirius name.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Aged Care said: "The new name will be announced in coming months. A whole of department staff vote has been conducted.
"The decision to change the name was made by the department's executives, not employees, however employees were consulted on the name change."
Historians were divided on the idea of excising names associated with the arrival of British colonists.
"As one looks across Canberra, large numbers of place names, and building names, honour people prominent in Australian life," Frank Bongiorno of the Australian National University said.
"And the overwhelming majority of them are products of the settler population, and not Indigenous people. They mainly reflect white and not First Nations experience," Professor Bongiorno said.
"So renaming the occasional building doesn't seem to me like a problem if there's an opportunity to make things more reflective of the diversity of our society and its history."
But it wasn't a universal view.
Peter Kurti of the Centre for Independent Studies feared that renaming the Sirius Building because of its colonial associations "represents yet another attempt to unpick Australia's history and its past".
He felt the First Fleet ultimately brought some benefits: "They include the rule of law, defence of human rights and liberal democratic government."
He also felt that the British colonisers brought the basis for "amazing technology which allows people today to enjoy the highest standards of health care in the world".
And buildings like the one named after the ship, Sirius.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
