[Shaved Monkey]

There's plenty of water up north.
and lots of talk and dreams about opening up the north(tropics) with low taxes, dams and agriculture becoming the food bowl for the growing Asian middle class.
Murdoch and Rinehart backs this ,and they are the real leaders of this country especially when the conservatives are in power.

[Perfector]

and lots of talk and dreams about opening up the north(tropics) with low taxes, dams and agriculture becoming the food bowl for the growing Asian middle class.

That just sounds stupid to me for a whole host of reasons. But in any case, then why are Murdoch and Rinehart and the libs and labor so intent on maintaining our population growth rate at close to 2%? This sort of growth means our population will grow so rapidly we'll barely be able to feed ourselves, even if we do "open up the north". I don't think they've thought this through.

[Shaved Monkey]

BAU doesnt need a long term thought out game plan just short term profits.

The banner under ABC news a few moments ago was Rinehart wants a tax free zone up North
She moves her business base their(it mainly is anyway) and she can count more billions and write poetry about Australians not being willing to work for $2 an hour like they do in Africa.

[SeaGypsy]

Lol, I thought she said $2 a DAY

The last great Savannah is what is at stake.
Southern Aussies won't do manual labour on tropical crops, handing out free visas to under 30's from about 17 countries can't fill the jobs going now when the mangoes are on. The top end savannah is the western world's most linguistically diverse, closest to original state vast region in the world. It is also capable of feeding many millions of hungry mouths just to the north, mouths whose owners are used to 12 hour days in the tropics. I spent years of my life in this region and will be there again in a few weeks. It's a heart wrenching part of the world. At the doorstep of Asia, with huge opportunity compared to the stale south, in a huge array of fields employment is virtually full most of the year.
My life revolves around this part of the world. I can't make any sweeping statements about where it is going, but it is a crucial time for the biodiversity and cultural diversity of the far north and centre of Australia. As an aspiring writer there are few more interesting places in the world than SE Asia and Oceania.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . SeagGypsy. I often think of how much food half a million pairs of little brown hands and a few thousand plow-broke water buffalo would produce on the Ord . . . . not that I'd want to see it but I'm sure it would make our efforts look pretty silly.

Cheers.

[SeaGypsy]

Too true SP, and the Ord is already dammed and waiting for the brown hands, last I heard the project peaked at 20% years ago runs around 16_18% capacity. A vaguely similar system in SE Asia can feed more than the population in Australia.

[Perfector]

I don't like the idea of this. But then again, isn't this sort of thing exactly what British/European people did in the more temperate parts of Australia? How can you reasonably object to this without sounding like a hypocrite?

[Newfie]

Canada, not Australia.

LearnnFrench in 3 years or leave Quebec.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/caq- ... -1.4084078