NORTHERN TERRITORY

Evening Star, Issue 22576, 18 February 1937, Page 1

NORTHERN TERRITORY

HOW ST IS RULED So much emphasis has been laid on the importance of selecting a man of outstanding ability as the next Administrator of the Northern Territory _of Australia as to suggest that something more than a great administrator is required to ensure the proper development of the far north, said A. Ingle Hall, in the ‘ Sydney Morning Herald ’ recently. Personal inadequacy of those previously entrusted with the office is not a reasonably acceptable explanation of the many manifestations of arrested development and haphazard control to which so many well-informed observers have testified in recent months. In fact, the worst, complaints refer to matters largely beyond the powers of control at present exercised by the local authorities. Schemes for promoting development have died in Canberra, not in Darwin, and the decline of the white population of the Territory is a consequence of the lack of economic development. It is equally difficult to imagine how any administrator could have saved the Australian fishing and pearling fleets from Japanese competition, or have maintained more effective supervision of the aborigines with the entirely inadequate facilities at his disposal. Administrators in the past have had to grapple with one set of problems in the north and another in the south.

• Like so many Empire builders before them, they have been handicapped by remote control and the lethargic support of those who appointed them. They could only get what was necessary done by criticising those who had power to remove them from office. That is still tho position to-day, and .it seems obvious that the new administrator, if bo is to accomplish anything worth while, will require both the ability to govern the Northern Territory and the courage to remedy the inertia of the Federal Parliament. Such a man would indeed be exceptional, and his appointment improbable. In any case, it is a bad system which relies unduly on the personal qualities of an individual, since outstanding men are hard to find and their services difficult to retain. Under the existing system of control tho Northern Territory _ seems to be nobody’s business. The single representative of the Territory has no vote, not even in matters directly affecting his own electorate. Tho responsibility of developing the north (rests with members elected in the various States, whose political prospects are not likely to be affected by the Government’s success or failure in administering, the Territory. The burden of an uphill task is relegated to an official not responsible to the people, and, if he achieves nothing, he provides a scapegoat. Government. If the 'primary function of the Federal Parliament is to govern Australia as a whole, then .the administration of the Territory seems to be a secondary consideration. Can such an arrangement be expected to produce the drive and enterprise essential to vigorous development? NOT IMPRESSIVE. The history of the Northern Territory since it was taken over by the Commonwealth in 1911 has not been impressive. Young industries have languished, the supervision of the aborigines is still unsatisfactory, and the white population Las declined from 3,767 in 1918 to 3,306 in the census of 1933. Efforts to improve the administration have been half-hearted and contradictory. In 1926 the Northern Australia Act divided the Territory into North Australia and Central Australia, each to be administered by a Government Resident. The same Act made provision for Advisory Councils and a Development Commission. In 1933 this policy was reversed. The Northern Territory (Administration) _ Act cancelled the provision for Advisory Councils and abolished the Development Commission. The dead weight of departmental control settled down on the North again, with consequences that are only too obvious to-day. For financial reasons alone, self-go-vernment for the Territory is not practicable at present, but is there no alterative to a system that has accomplished so little since 1911 P Self-government in a modified form might be possible with Commonwealth assistance and limited supervision, or it might be possible to entrust the destinies of the North to representatives from the various States, who would be responsible to tho electors solely for what they accomplished or failed to accomplish in the Territory. Those who live in the north or possess a material stake in its development would he more likely to prosecute an energetic policy than those to whom it is only a secondary consideration. They possess a keener appreciation of the difficulties to be surmounted, and have a stronger incentive to attract capital and establish effective control. Such factors weigh heavily in the scales against the present system, and while the selection of a suitable Administrator is being considered, it may be timely to decide whether he can achieve anything worth while under gristing disabilities, or whether the progress of the north would not be better served bv a more directly responsible system of control.