WI: Separate territories of Northern and Central Australia?

From 1927 to 1931, this was the map of Australia:

Australian_states_history_16.gif


How can we keep it that way - i.e. separate territories of Northern Australia and Central Australia?
 
Last edited:
No, the simple problem was population. Even today NT has only 100,000 people outside Darwin most of whom live on the Stuart Highway. My estimate for the population today of "Central Australia" is 60,000 people which simply isn't enough, combining it with either the NT or SA is inevitable and desirable for simple economies of scale in government. The only way you could manage is have a lot more people living there which considering the climate is pretty hard to imagine.
 
The only way you could manage is have a lot more people living there which considering the climate is pretty hard to imagine.

Hm, well is their anything valuable in the area(s)?

If their is than you could get large populations, even in places that are'nt really suited to Human habitation.
 
There are the mines which are the reasons the NT has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world but not only was very little of the exploration done by the 30's the logistics meant that it was impractical at that time. The best bet to keep Centralia is to have an early Pacific War leading to an infrastructure build up similar to OTL and thus more settlement. The other option is to have Centralia as an Aboriginal Reserve. While Australia's attitudes at this time where hardly enlightened I suppose its possible that you could get a movement to "give 'em some desert so the outta our way".
 

Larrikin

Banned
There are the mines which are the reasons the NT has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world but not only was very little of the exploration done by the 30's the logistics meant that it was impractical at that time. The best bet to keep Centralia is to have an early Pacific War leading to an infrastructure build up similar to OTL and thus more settlement. The other option is to have Centralia as an Aboriginal Reserve. While Australia's attitudes at this time where hardly enlightened I suppose its possible that you could get a movement to "give 'em some desert so the outta our way".

Very little of that NT mining is done in "Centralia". If reality the is nothing much of any value there at all. The only place with sufficient water to put a settlement of any size is Alice Springs, aside from that it is nothing but square miles per head cattle country and desert.
 
I thought there was at least some mining in the Alice Springs region? Anyway the key reason why your not going to get "Centralia" is there aren't enough people and I really don't think your going to come up with a plausible reason to have a couple of hundred thousand people decide they really want to live in a desert with minimal economic opportunities.
The best I can come up with for a separate territory in the area is a really nasty, but not genocidal, government who decides to ethnically cleanse the Aboriginal population from the rest of the country, forcing them into the area which would essentially be a Reservation like the ones in the US. While that would get a bigger population and a reason to have the area separate from the more valuable Northern Territory I can't come up with a reason why any Australian government would want to do it.
 
Perhaps not a Genocidal campaign, but as Uluru is in Centralia, perhaps we see it spun off as an autonomous Aboriginal Homeland?
 
Honestly, I had no idea the administration of Central Australia was ever devolved from Darwin to Alice Springs by the Commonwealth. I knew about the colonial era adminstration from NSW and then SA, but not this (as per wiki):

"George Pearce, Minister for Home and Territories in the Federal Parliament in the 1920s, thought that the Northern Territory was too large to be adequately governed, and thus for a short time a separate territory named Central Australia existed.

Central Australia, like the Northern Territory, had its own Government Resident and administration, based at The Residency, Alice Springs. The division was along the line of 20 degrees south, down to the South Australian border, and took effect on 1 February 1927 through the North Australia Act 1926. However the territory lasted for less than five years, and was reincorporated into Northern Territory on 12 June 1931."

Sounds like Depression-era cost cutting.

If the Scullin government hadn't reunited the two territories when it did then this reform just gets implemented in 1939, when the Menzies government starts building the wartime highway to Darwin.
 
There are the mines which are the reasons the NT has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world but not only was very little of the exploration done by the 30's the logistics meant that it was impractical at that time. The best bet to keep Centralia is to have an early Pacific War leading to an infrastructure build up similar to OTL and thus more settlement. The other option is to have Centralia as an Aboriginal Reserve. While Australia's attitudes at this time where hardly enlightened I suppose its possible that you could get a movement to "give 'em some desert so the outta our way".

I really don't think your going to come up with a plausible reason to have a couple of hundred thousand people decide they really want to live in a desert with minimal economic opportunities.

Hm, perhaps a major military complex(es) along with a permanent civil town for the soldiers and workers at the base could be built in the area do to it being isolated from the public and from any possible invasion, that could increase population by between 5,000-20,000 few thousand.
 
The one thing Australia has in abundance is empty space for secret military facilities the problem is logistics. Which is easier build your super secret base in the middle of the desert hundreds of miles from anywhere but near a railway and only 10 hours from a major urban centre to provide support or in the middle of nowhere with appalling transport links and days away from anywhere (remember I'm talking about the 20's not today). Adelaide is the centre of Australia's defense industry and thus over the years there have been a lot of secret projects in northern SA and I'm sure there still are. Going the extra 1000 miles provides zero extra security for considerable extra cost.
 
The one thing Australia has in abundance is empty space for secret military facilities the problem is logistics. Which is easier build your super secret base in the middle of the desert hundreds of miles from anywhere but near a railway and only 10 hours from a major urban centre to provide support or in the middle of nowhere with appalling transport links and days away from anywhere (remember I'm talking about the 20's not today). Adelaide is the centre of Australia's defense industry and thus over the years there have been a lot of secret projects in northern SA and I'm sure there still are. Going the extra 1000 miles provides zero extra security for considerable extra cost.
But rail extended to Alice Springs. That's within your CA, no?
 
The RR does go to Alice Springs but there are lots of uninhabited, very secure desert areas that are close to the Stuart Highway and the RR but are also slightly nicer and most importantly closer to Adelaide. Remember we need people moving there in the 20's not today.
 
Top