In 1838 the British in an effort to cement their claim to Northern Australia set up a naval settlement at Port Essington in west Arnhem Land in the now Northern Territory. It ended up lasting 11 years before they gave up but in the first year there was cyclone that destroyed a number of the recently built building so maybe if they had recruited laborers from India to rebuild and they survived better then Europeans. It could start the trend for settlements in the north to recruit from India even resulting in the building of an Ord River dam 100 years early to irrigate crops.