Northern Australia

Northern Australia
Area

The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26° and all of the Northern Territory.^{[citation needed]} Those local government areas of Western Australia and Queensland that lie partially in the north are included.

Although it comprises 45% of the total area of Australia, Northern Australia has only 5% of the Australian population (1.3 million in 2019).^[1] However, it includes several sources of Australian exports, being coal from the Great Dividing Range in Queensland/New South Wales and the natural gas and iron ore of the Pilbara region in WA. It also includes major natural tourist attractions, such as Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu National Park.

Geography and climate

Almost all of Northern Australia is a huge ancient craton that has not experienced geological upheaval since the end of the Precambrian. The only exception to this generalisation is the Wet Tropics of northern Queensland, where active volcanoes have been present as recently as the Pleistocene.

The vast craton in the north and west contains a number of quite rugged mountain ranges, of which the highest are the

The climate of the north of Australia ranges from

Frosts are common in the southern inland during the winter, but in some years, such as 1998, they are much less frequent due to the recent incidence of warm pools in the Indian Ocean.

Soils

Except in the

This immensely long weathering time means that nutrient levels in Northern Australian soils are exceptionally low because practically all soluble minerals have long been weathered out. The major constituents of most soils in Northern Australia are iron and aluminium oxides, both of which are not only very insoluble but also serve to reduce the soil pH and remove phosphorus from the soil as insoluble iron and aluminium phosphates. The insolubility of these metal oxides also serves, under the extremely harsh conditions during the dry season in the north and generally in the south, to create massive sheets which are impossible to plough.^{[citation needed]}

In the Lake Eyre Basin, deposition from volcanic regions to the east has produce cracking clay soils of quite high fertility which are still often fairly low in phosphorus but have very good levels of potassium, calcium and sulfur. These soils provide the best grassland for grazing in the region. The youthful, volcanic Wet Tropics has a number of areas of fertile alluvial soils that support intensive horticulture.^{[citation needed]}

Flora and fauna

The extreme soil poverty of most of Northern Australia has the effect of confining large herbivores such as the kangaroo to the better soil in the dry grasslands since they cannot digest the extreme poor fodder from the northern monsoonal regions. However, the frequency of fires during the desiccating dry season from May to September means that forests cannot establish themselves except in sheltered places. This has created a unique type of tropical savanna environment in which fires play a crucial role in elevating the extremely low nutrient levels and aiding growth during the wet season.

The many large rivers of the region such as the Mitchell, Gilbert-Einasleigh, South and East Alligator, Daly, Ord and Fitzroy support populations of the saltwater and freshwater crocodiles, which are by far the best-known animals of the region. There are also a number of species of python. Further south, where rivers are not adequate to support crocodiles, there exist a number of quite unique lizard species.

The Wet Tropics, like all tropical rainforests, is very rich in unique species, and importantly contains some of the most primitive flowering plants in the world.

Economy

Northern Australia faces major challenges to economic growth. Although the climate and soil poverty have defied all attempts to develop large-scale agriculture in large parts of Northern Australia, some agricultural and horticultural industries have seen strong growth. For example, in the Wet Tropics,

Notable failures in ventures into attempting rice cultivation have occurred in both the Ord River area in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and the Humpty Doo Rice Project in the Northern Territory.

Northern Australia produces more than 93% of Australia’s mangoes,^[4] more than 94% of Australia’s bananas,^[5] and more than 95% of Australia’s sugar.^[6] Sheep and beef cattle are also raised successfully across Northern Australia, usually on extremely large properties. Northern Australia accounts for 64% of Australia’s national beef cattle herd.^[7] The geological factors that make Northern Australia's soils so unsuited to traditional agriculture, however, make it extremely rich in ores of abundant, insoluble

During the 1950s and 1960s, the government of Robert Menzies attempted to develop farming in Northern Australia, but pests made this impossible even when varieties of rice suited to the soils were developed. Today, however, sugar cane growing has expanded into the Ord River basin without surpassing cattle and tourism as the main industries of the region.

Proposals for development of Northern Australia

Proponents for the development of Northern Australia have been found since before Federation and include:

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (October 2015)

• Alfred Searcy
• George Pearce^[9]
• Gina Rinehart in Northern Australia and then some: changes we need to make our country rich (2013)^[10] and through Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision.^[11]

The latest iteration of these proposals is found in the Our North Our Future: White Paper On Developing Northern Australia published by the Abbott government on 18 June 2015.^[12][13]

See also

• Eastern states of Australia
• North West Australia
• Southern Australia

References