KENNEDY MP, Bob Katter has told the Developing Northern Australia Conference that two new States need to be created in the northern half of Australia if the country is to go ahead economically, as well as for strategic and defence needs.

Mr Katter proposes that a State of North Queensland be created and that a State combining the northern half of Western Australia and the Northern Territory, also be created.

“Except for a 40-kilometrestrip on the east coast of Australia and a little dot around Darwin and Perth, there is no-one living in Australia,” he told the conference in an online address.

“Guess where all the coal is? Guess where all the iron-ore is? Guess where all the water is? Guess where all the hard rock metals are? Guess where all the uranium is? It’s in the northern half of this country, but we have no-one living here.

“If you think this situation is going to continue then you believe in the Tooth-fairy. Three billion people in Asia see us as a little enclave of white people sitting on a treasure-trove, and we haven’t even bothered to populate the continent. A land without people will be taken by a people without land.

“This is not my opinion, it’s the opinion of former Prime Minister, and Country Party Leader, John‘ Black Jack’ McEwen who wrote in his autobiography, that ‘it would be unacceptable, in world affairs, if we sought to own and occupy a whole continent with so few people.”

Mr Katter believes the new States would act in the interests of people living in Northern Australia who are currently ruled by Governments based thousands of kilometres to the south in Perth, Brisbane and Canberra.

“We have been crying out for irrigation projects, better roads, telecommunications, new rail lines and transmission lines, but these visions will never be delivered while we are controlled by people 2,000 kilometres away,” he said.

“The United States started with 13 States and now it has 50. Australia started with six States and we still have six. No wonder their population exploded and ours has slowly grown and stagnated.”

Mr Katter said the other key steps needed to expand northern Australia were title deeds for First Australians(allowing proper landownership), the iron boomerang rail project (bringing WA’s iron ore to the east coast where we have ample coal for the manufacturing of steel), and the Yipipi Canal allowing the export of iron ore, phosphate and fertiliser out through the Gulf of Carpentaria.