North Australian Political Economy: Issues and Agendas

This book assembles a diverse group of scholars with long experience of analysing northern development issues. Its chapters cover the notion of development from a range of perspectives -social, cultural, economic and environmental. The papers range broadly, from trying to explain the operating processes that shape the north to analysing some of the core and crucial issues for the future of northern Australia. Readers wishing to see advocacy for damming northern rivers and pumping their waters to Australia's southeast – or similar grandiose schemes - will be disappointed. This book dispels simple nostrums about the development of the north. This is a tough long-term task and has to be designed appropriately. That design has to take account of the singular environment, society and economy of the north. These papers go a considerable way to delineating how that singularity needs new approaches to determining development paths.