‘Blasphemy’: Proposed new map of Australia divides on social media

A proposal to merge two Australian jurisdictions has prompted debate on social media, amid renewed calls for Queensland to be split in two.

The unofficial map, which fuses North Queensland and the Northern Territory to create ‘Northern Australia’, was shared on Reddit with the caption: “How to get north queensland their own state.”

A number of people responding to the post said they would be in “support” of the move, which would mean government “could focus on the real issues up north”.

“I’d vote for that,” a second person wrote. “To be honest, there should be a political push for this new map.”

Some vehemently disagreed with the proposal, describing it as “blasphemy”, while another called on leaders to “just split Queensland” and “leave the Northern Territory alone”.

“I don’t think many NT or QLD citizens will support absorbing their territory,” someone else said.

“Just let the NT have a constitution and become Northern Australia, then split QLD similar to what you’ve done here and just call it Northern QLD.

“Northern QLD can then fight over whether they want Cairns or Townsville to be the capital. Either of them have similar populations to Darwin.”

It follows increased calls from Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) leader, Robbie Katter, and assorted Liberal National MPs due to a lack of regional representation among our country’s top decision-makers.

Mr Katter, who is the member for Traeger, has made repeated attempts to cut ties with the south in recent years, following in the footsteps of his father, federal MP Bob Katter’s, own decades-long quest.

In May, he claimed North Queensland had been left behind amid enormous infrastructure spending by the state government.

“The majority of the policy coming out here is actually doing more damage than good to the regions,” Mr Katter said.

He has called for a vote on a state split to be held outside of the southeast, saying it would provide an accurate gauge for the north’s desire to separate – which Mr Katter said he’s confident was “gonna happen at some point”.

“The constitution was written for it expecting that we would make this happen,” he said.

“We’ve just been too near-sighted and lineal in our approach to government and it’s beyond the capacity, imagination, bandwidth of most politicians in this house.

“When the United States have created over 20 new states, we’ve created zero in Australia.”

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, who lives in Rockhampton, also put forward the bold suggestion in a piece for The Courier-Mail in August, noting that recent Australian prime ministers and all current state premiers are from capital cities (bar newly-sworn in Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, who was born in the rural town of Ingham).

“When the Council of Australian Governments meets (or now called the ‘national cabinet’), there is no representation from regional Australia,” Senator Canavan wrote.

He argued that a “chasm of mistrust” has formed between Aussies living in rural and regional areas and political leaders, who he claimed often made decisions based on capital cities.

Senator Canavan then suggested a parliament with decision-making power based in regional Australia – declaring that “the way to get that is to create new states”.

New states would “reinvigorate” the country and help relieve growing housing and land pressure faced in cities.

“A new state of North Queensland would be hungry for development and population growth so that it can grow its economic viability,” Senator Canavan wrote, adding that the Constitution allows for the creation of new states.

“Indeed, our founding fathers expected that we would create new states just as the United States did as it grew and developed.”

The idea was also previously a major policy platform for the North Queensland First party, created by former member for Whitsunday, Jason Costigan.

Mr Costigan told news.com.au in 2020 he was ridiculed by his former Liberal National Party colleagues when they’d go for beers outside Brisbane’s Parliament House and he’d bring up the idea of North Queensland going out on its own.

He said the concept had been touted by some from as far back as 1865 and suggested northern Queenslanders had finally had enough of being told what to do by their southern neighbours.

“The government in the southeast of the state is sucking the life out of north and central Queensland, and it will continue to until there’s a 21st-century version of a civil war unless we finally do something about it,” Mr Costigan said.