STATUES of key figures in WA’s colonial history who were “architects” of “atrocities” against Aboriginal people should be removed from public places, says a City of Fremantle councillor.

Cr Sam Wainwright also wants a public discussion about renaming roads such as Stirling and Canning highways, which honour Swan River colony founder James Stirling and surveyor Alfred Canning.

Stirling, WA’s first governor, is commemorated by a statue on Hay Street in the CBD, while Cr Wainwright said residents had raised concerns about Explorers’ Monument at Fremantle’s Esplanade Park.

It features a bust of Maitland Brown, an explorer who led the La Grange massacre of Aboriginal people in 1865.

The City of Fremantle triggered national controversy last year when it changed the date of its Australia Day tribute to be more “culturally inclusive”.

Cr Wainwright said there was no organised campaign or formal proposal to call for change, and neither was he advocating a complete purge of every controversial monument or road name.

“I don’t think the statue should be destroyed but often they better belong in museums,” he said. “Do we really want people directly responsible for what we now consider to be atrocities to be displayed in ... public places?”

Cr Wainwright wrote an article for Green Left Weekly on Friday saying while changing dates, renaming roads and removing statues were symbolic, it encouraged an honest look at history which could lead to meaningful change.

“Fremantle is marked by the intersection of the Stirling and Canning highways,” he wrote. “Governor James Stirling was the architect of the Pinjarra Massacre (which killed about 30 Noongar people) ... Alfred Canning chained up Aboriginal people and force fed them salt so they would lead him to their wells.”

Corina Abraham, a descendant of a survivor of the Pinjarra Massacre, supported the call for change and said there at least needed to be plaques attached to monuments explaining history had been “glorified”.

“It makes my heart ache (when she sees the statues), all I see is slaughter and murder. My people had no chance,” she said.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Ben Wyatt declined to comment. Premier Mark McGowan did not respond.

Plans to remove statues of Confederate solders sparked the deadly Charlottesville riots in the US. This weekend, a statue of Captain Cook was vandalised in Sydney.