St George's Anglican Church was opened and dedicated by Bishop John Feetham. During World War II, the Naval Air Station Palm Island (aka Palm Island Airfield) was built at Wallaby Point in 1943 by the US Navy’s 55 Construction Batallion (Seabees). It was a seaplane maintenance facility with a concrete slipway which was predominantly used to serve PBY Catalina flying boats. St Anthony's Catholic Church in the Parish of St Anne was blessed and opened on Sunday 6 August 1961 by Bishop H. E. Ryan. It was designed and built from stone by Townsville consulting engineers, Ariotti and Norman. It is at 26 Banfield Drive (within the grounds of the Catholic school, ). The women's dormitory closed in 1967 and was demolished in 1969. The children's dormitories were officially closed on 5 December 1975. 1978: Sacking of the Aboriginal Council The Aboriginal Council of Palm Island was sacked by Joh Bjelke-Petersen's government in July 1978. This followed moves by the Queensland Government to hand over control of Palm Island to Townsville Council, which was opposed by islanders in a petition instigated by Labor senator Jim Keeffe. Denis Freney, writing in Tribune, reported that the decision was made based on a counter-petition run by the government which contained many signatures of Aboriginal people which had been forged or obtained by duplicity, and was "part of a plan by the Bjelke-Petersen government to ride roughshod over the wishes of the 1305 residents of the island and open it up to property speculators and tourist development". He wrote that both petitions contained many of the same people's signatures. 1999: Compensation by Queensland Government for underpaid wages In 1999 the Queensland Government apologised and gave compensation each to former Palm Islander employees in recompense for underpaid wages between 1975 and 1986. The payment was ordered by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in a case first brought to the commission by seven Palm Islanders in 1986. 2004: Death in custody and consequences On 19 November 2004, Palm Island resident Mulrunji (known as Cameron Doomadgee while alive), aged 36 or 37, died in a police cell on Palm Island, one hour after being picked up for allegedly causing a public nuisance. After the post-mortem report said that the cause of death was severe internal injuries, riots occurred, and as a result, a number of people were charged with offences. Two coronial inquests were held,