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Australia must populate its undeveloped tropical north or face invasion by Asian refugees driven south by climate change, an outspoken Government MP has warned.
Senator Bill Heffernan's doomsday scenario echoes the post-war cry of "populate or perish", when Australia feared it would be vulnerable to Asian incursions unless it dramatically increased its population through immigration from Europe. "We're not talking tomorrow, but in 50 to 80 years time," he told the Bulletin. "If there are 400 million people who have run out of water - Bangladesh or Indonesia - well, if you want to protect your sovereignty, you've got to have a plan."
Northern Australia is a sparsely settled region of cattle ranches, vast national parks and Aboriginal reserves. The only towns of any size are Darwin in the Northern Territory and Cairns and Townsville in Queensland.
Heffernan, a close political ally of Prime Minister John Howard, is the head of a A$20 million ($23 million) taskforce looking at ways of injecting more people, more infrastructure and more intensive farming into the Top End.
He pointed out that the Cape York Peninsula is larger than Victoria, but has a population of just a few thousand. "It would be better for us to do it than letting someone else. Parts of the country would appeal to people who had nothing."
Northern Australia, which unlike the south of the continent enjoys an annual wet season and has plenty of water, could be coveted if temperature rises leave parts of Asia short of food and water. Rising sea levels could make millions of Asian people homeless and drive them to seek sanctuary elsewhere, Heffernan believes.
Nearly 40 per cent of Asia's four billion population live within 70km of the sea, with low-lying cities such as Bangkok particularly vulnerable to a surge in sea levels. An Oxford University study claimed that 73 million Chinese could lose their homes as a result of rising sea levels.
An expert said his warning was overly alarmist. "First of all you'd have to question whether Asians displaced by climate change would want to come to Australia," said John Connell, an authority on climate change and refugees at the University of Sydney. "If they're from countries with mountainous areas like Indonesia, Vietnam or the Philippines they are more likely to want to move inland from coastal areas. Even in low-lying areas people would most likely want to resettle in places with the same language and culture."
Heffernan's remarks follow a warning last week from the head of the Australian Federal Police that climate change will be the biggest security risk of the 21st century. Water and food shortages could cause epic refugee problems, said Commissioner Mick Keelty.
"For China to feed its predicted 2030 population, it needs to increase its food production by about 50 per cent above today's levels. How does it achieve this, if its available land is dramatically shrinking and millions of people are on the move because of land and water? In their millions, people could begin to look for new land and they'll cross oceans and borders to do it."
