REMOTE Australia is a failed state that is becoming a threat to national security and vulnerable to possible invasion because of government inaction and ineptitude, a major report to be released next week has found.
As the global power base shifts to India, China and southeast Asia, Australians are retreating to the southeast and southwest corners of the country, leaving sparsely-populated vast tracts of land to their north vulnerable to a "perfect storm" of social, economic and ecological crises.
In a wide-ranging critique that applies to 85 per cent of the continent`s landmass, 28 prominent Australians have warned the nation`s vast income-generating resource zones could end up being "contested", as crumbling infrastructure and declining populations turn remote Australia into a largely unsettled wilderness.
They criticise an "expeditionary" attitude in which transient workers fly in to Australia`s arid and tropical regions, extracting wealth that is not re-invested in local communities already crippled by lack of resources and poor governance, The Weekend Australian reports.
Remote Focus: Revitalising Remote Australia, to be released on Monday, describes the coming crises arising out of the failure of all levels of government to deliver basic services and halt the flight of non-indigenous people to more settled areas.
It calls for a national commitment to urgently address:
* Ineffective and erratic service delivery throughout remote Australia.
* The issue of "white flight", in which trained and educated white Australians are abandoning remote parts of the country due to social tensions and lack of basic services.
* The drift of a rapidly expanding indigenous population into remote towns, where they remain outside the mainstream economy but rely increasingly on scant welfare services.
* A crisis in managing remote Australia`s fragile ecosystems due to a lack of any integrated national strategy.
During World War II there was the Brisbane line, meaning that Australia was only going to defend the country south of Brisbane. After reading this wonder if that still applies now?
Posted by: Jeremy 3:26am today
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