The house where eight children were killed in Cairns is likely to be demolished, local MP Gavin King says.
King told media on Monday morning that after discussions with local residents he believed the house on Murray Street, Manoora, should be demolished and a memorial erected.
“I’ve asked the Cairns Safer Streets taskforce to lead some of that consultation with the community, along with the police liaison officers who have been doing a fantastic job down there,” he said.
“They’ll consult with both the family and traditional owners and local residents.
“It certainly won’t be the state government coming in over the top and deciding what that will look like, or indeed the timing.”
Yodie Batzke, a Torres Strait Island community advocate in Cairns, told Guardian Australia she had been in discussions with King as well as members of the police force and government departments around what to do with the house, but it was “too fresh and too early for the families” to be discussing demolishing the house or otherwise.
On Monday morning the case against the 37-year-old mother of seven of the children was adjourned until late January. Her appearance would not be required, a Department of Justice spokeswoman told Guardian Australia.
She was charged with eight counts murder at a hospital bedside hearing on Sunday morning, after the bodies of eight children were found stabbed to death on Friday.
Batzke said any proposed demolition would need to be discussed with the mother.
“Whilst [she] has been arrested, she’s still alive. She still has the right of say as to how things can be done with the contents of the home,” Batzke said.
King and the police had concerns that something might happen to the house once investigators had packed up and left the scene.
Batzke said grieving families and community members had arrived in Cairns over the weekend from across the state. She had not spoken with the community on Darnley Island, but “I have no doubt they are doing it hard”, she said.
Some in Cairns were doing better than others, she said. “We’re concerned about those who haven’t come out in public grieving,” she said. “The kids are interacting, we’re keeping them occupied with different activities.”
At the weekend a neighbour, whom Guardian Australia agreed not to name, told how his path had crossed repeatedly with the woman since they were both teenagers in the Torres Strait.
“I’ve known her for ages, since we were in high school,” he said.
He was finishing up at Thursday Island state high just as she was beginning. In time they would both make a go of life on the Australian mainland and wound up living near each other in the same Cairns suburb of Mooroobool.
Each with their own families, they separately landed on the same street in Manoora, where rents are low and the company of fellow Torres Strait Islanders abounds.
Her children were friends with his children, he said. She would call out to them in creole, as he would to his children, he said. She rarely went back to the strait. “It’s really expensive,” the man said.
As a single mother of nine children, seven of them dependants, she would have struggled to afford the airfares, which often cost more than return trips overseas.
But she seemed to cope as a parent with a large brood as well as anyone on Murray Street, he said, in that three-bedroom, fibro house that was home to eight people.
The man, who had known of her for 26 years, said she was a “quiet lady” but “really friendly”.
He had last seen her on her veranda as he was on his way to the Balaclava hotel on Friday morning, he said. She was talking to her adult son.
Within an hour the son had gone to the shops and returned to discover his brothers and sisters dead, as well as his cousin, who had been staying with them.
He learned there was something wrong at the house only when he saw the police cars on TV at the Balaclava. Then his cousin called.
Now he was considering what future remained in the Murray Street area, whether or not the house was demolished. His family had encouraged him to leave.
“I’m going to move away from this area,” he said. “I think we have to go somewhere else.”
