1. Northern Australia: securing a developing economy to secure a developed nation
- Author:
- John Coyne and Ian Satchwell
- Publication Date:
- 08-2025
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
- Abstract:
- Northern Australia is central to the nation’s future. Economically, it serves as the gateway to Indo-Pacific trade, is home to world-class resources and represents a frontier of opportunity. Strategically, it’s the keystone of Australia’s national defence posture. Yet, despite its immense importance, the region continues to face persistent structural challenges, including limited private-sector investment; low local economic capture from major projects; workforce and service deficits; and deteriorating public safety indicators. The Northern Australia Action Plan 2024–2029 describes a refreshed agenda for the north, encompassing economic development and delivering on a broad range of government priorities to support the region’s success. Its policy priorities cover many of the north’s needs. The action plan remains framed largely within nationwide policy approaches, however. This report reframes northern Australia not as a peripheral problem but as a developing economy within a developed nation. It calls for a renewed, coordinated investment agenda, treating spending in the north as a nation-building imperative. Inaction will incur higher costs in the future, but it will also expose Australia to intolerable risks. This investment—needed now—needs to be premised on the strategic advantage offered by the North’s space—literally and figuratively—for ideas, initiatives and infrastructure that strengthen the nation’s security and sovereignty through fields such as energy development, trusted and resilient minerals supply chains and military endeavours including with allies, all of which blends government responsibilities, traditional ownership and commercial development. Drawing on a detailed analysis of the Northern Territory (NT) and extending to northern Queensland and northern Western Australia (WA), this report presents a comprehensive, evidence-based argument for nation-building through targeted investment. It highlights not only the economic, security and strategic benefits but also the moral imperative to close the gap in service access, infrastructure quality, and life outcomes. Much of the analysis focuses on the NT, as the economic data for northern Queensland and northern WA is often distorted by the prosperity of those states’ southern regions. That makes it more difficult to isolate the structural challenges unique to the north in those states. However, the NT shares key demographic, geographic and economic characteristics with northern Queensland and WA—including low population density, high infrastructure costs, limited private-sector depth, and service delivery challenges in remote communities—making it a strong proxy for the broader region. The north shouldn’t be treated as a region apart but as the leading edge of Australia’s future prosperity and security. Ten years on from the Australian Government’s 2015 Our north, our future: White Paper on developing northern Australia, and four years since the 2021 Australian Infrastructure Plan, where progress has been mixed, this report outlines actionable recommendations across the federal, state, territory and private-sector domains. Australia is operating within an unstable international environment, involving an uncertain global outlook that doesn’t just include wars in Europe and the Middle East but growing tensions and security threats in the Indo-Pacific. Australia needs to view investment in the North as not just a local prosperity matter but vital for Australia’s long term security, deterrence of adversaries and preparation and resilience should deterrence ever fail and when inevitable natural disasters occur. In this way, this report provides a practical road map to secure a resilient, sovereign and prosperous future for the north and the nation.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Borders, and Research and Development
- Political Geography:
- Australia and Northern Australia