Population policies at the edge: The demographic ambitions of frontiers

Generally the regions of interest in this book do not have ‘population policies’ explicitly labelled as such (the Northern Territory (NT) is the exception, although the Building our Population strategy (Northern Territory Government 2004) released in 2004 is no longer available on the NT Government web site). Rather, the population policy environment is described in regional development policies whose overt concern is with economic development, health, education and training, housing or infrastructure investment. In reviewing over 30 such policy documents at local, provincial, national and supra-national level for this chapter, remarkable similarities in ambitions and approaches were evident. Virtually all documents professed the remote Norths to be seeking population growth - through increased fertility, immigration from various sources and retention or recapture of local populations. Virtually all documents separated policies relating to ‘economic’ populations (essentially imported labour) and Indigenous populations. Virtually all documents saw population growth as inseparable from economic growth and economic development strategies were similar - exploit natural resources for export (usually the job of the ‘economic’ population) and exploit scenic amenity and cultural artifacts for economic diversity (and to provide opportunities for Indigenous populations).