British Northern Territory

What if the British do not hand over control of the Northern Territory to South Australia in 1863?

What if it remains under British control into the 20th Century?

What happens now?

Is this plausible?
 
Why would Britain want it?...and why govern it from London when they've got good central cities in Australia?
 
What would this reason be?

I don't know. Is/was the Northern Territory of any military use?

Newfoundland stayed outside Canada because it specifically rejected becoming a part of the Dominion - which, IIRC, New Zealand followed in respect of Australia. So there's a precedent there. Just beef up the Northern Territory, and give it a reason to reject federation.
 

MrP

Banned
I don't know. Is/was the Northern Territory of any military use?

Newfoundland stayed outside Canada because it specifically rejected becoming a part of the Dominion - which, IIRC, New Zealand followed in respect of Australia. So there's a precedent there. Just beef up the Northern Territory, and give it a reason to reject federation.

I recall there was an east-west split in Australian politics at some point (1920s? 1880s?), but I'm not aware of owt north-south.
 
What if the British do not hand over control of the Northern Territory to South Australia in 1863?

What if it remains under British control into the 20th Century?

What happens now?

Is this plausible?

Well I think it probable that some sort of more formal supra national community or alliance would have been formed post WW2 - akin to other groups like the EEC.

Currently NZ and Australia have a series of formal treaties which govern our close co-operation in trade and defence - these agreements, or at least the former anyway, mandates that we co-operate closely on policy and the drafting of legislation. For defence issues we have a close relationship (for example NZ uses the Australian Defences Forces Officer training school at Duntroon, AU) but the waters are kind of muddied by the ANZUS Nuclear issue. We also have quite generous access rights either way - so permanent migration or movement (but not welfare) between the two countries is incredibly easy (at present). However there is no formal organisation that runs this - it is all state to state and the closeness of the relationship often is based on things like personality of the two PMs.

So with this in mind, and assuming no POD that stops the above relationship developing then any different time line will probably have a similar relationship, but this time with three rather than two nations - NZ, Australia and Northern Australia. If this is the case, then perhaps a simple state to state situation won't work that well, given that 1) the above relationship dynamic exists, 2) the states all were part of the Empire/Commonwealth and hadn't fallen out in a significant way, 3) NA was still rather poor in terms of population and otherwise relative to R(est) O(f) A(ustralia), and NZ, 4) the three nations are still all likely to be dominated by English speaking British migrants who like to stick together, and 5) there are significant numbers of other Commonwealth, Australian or NZ territories/dependencies/protectorates in the near Pacific that might later wish to join such a group- so perhaps a formal organisation would be a better tool with which to organise with for defence, commerce/trade and general international advocacy - so a much stronger South Pacific Forum.

We could call it the Pacific Commonwealth Organisation - there would be no capital - meetings would be regular but based at member states capitals (like APEC is today). Range of responsibilities could include a common naval force (maybe not likely), mutual defence, training etc; for commerce - a common currency perhaps, development banks or loans, uniform law drafting, tariffs/quotas etc. I wouldn't think there would be any need for a parliament or anything like that.
 
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Thande

Donor
In hindsight one could see this being useful for nuclear testing without having to cooperate too closely with the Australian government, but I can't see any reason why it would be done in 1863...
 
If the British kept the East Indies rather then give them back to the Dutch (which they were quite capable of doing), this could lead to the extension of plantation agriculture into Northern Australia, followed by "guest" labourers working in Mines. Come Federation, Australia might not want a majority non-white Northern Territories, and if it was sufficiently lucrative, the British might not want to transfer governance from the Cononial Service's outpost in Jakarta.
 
I'm fairly certain the area was part of New South Wales before being transferred to South Australia. It does not border NSW, of course, but this did not matter until Queensland was separated in 1859. If South Australia doesn't get it then either it will stay in NSW or Queensland will get it at some point (as it did in my still incomplete TL).

Sorry to burst your bubble.
 
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What would this reason be?

Any plausible reason.

I don't know. Is/was the Northern Territory of any military use?

Newfoundland stayed outside Canada because it specifically rejected becoming a part of the Dominion - which, IIRC, New Zealand followed in respect of Australia. So there's a precedent there. Just beef up the Northern Territory, and give it a reason to reject federation.

That can work!

I recall there was an east-west split in Australian politics at some point (1920s? 1880s?), but I'm not aware of owt north-south.

East-West split there has been. But there has not been any north-south split. (Unless rivalry between Victoria and New South Wales counts)
 
I guess

1) Some sort of sustainable industry that requires large numbers of low skilled, low paid labour is created early on in NA - well before federation was seriously discussed. This would create large populations of probably Indian labourers, like in Fiji or Natal or E Africa

2) The NA Aboriginal population is either larger, or more politically aware and gets some sort of NZ Maori like treatment (A formal treaty that promises to protect them in exchange for some sort of loss of sovereignty etc) at a similar point in time (1830s-1840s). The difference being that NA is at this point in time far less hospitable to white settlement than NZ , so the indigneous population doesn't get swamped by settlers. In NZ and other situations the settlers/ and their governments usually ignored/ or obstructed previously agreed treaties (although not always). If TTL's NA has similarly low levels of white settlement then the Colonial Administration will more easily dominate and is more likely to abide by treaties/fairness
 
A 1901 map where the Northern Territory is separate from the newly created Commonwealth.

British Northern Territory - 1901.GIF
 
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