Tensions between urban and rural politics are found the world over. In the U.S., there’s a big political divide between the north and the south, and between urban and rural voting patterns and politics.
The same is true in Australia, where a senator from the state of Queensland thinks his state is too big and too divided to remain just one state. Matt Canavan has recently called for Queensland—known in Australia as the Sunshine State—to be cleaved in two. Canavan wants the region called North Queensland to become its own state.
He says the population in North Queensland is exploding and the citizens have needs at are not being met under the current governance system. Citing the population of more than one million—”double the number in Tasmania”—Canavan said his region creates “25 percent more economic output” per capita than the southern portion of the state. Yet, he says, that population has to put up with a state government focused on what he sees as trivialities, such as lower public transport fares and organizing Olympic games “thousands of kilometers away from us.”
In Canavan’s view, the “founding fathers” of Australia wanted a future in which the population could form new states, and that’s why that possibility is written in the country’s constitution.
Some politicians agree with Canavan, including Queensland’s former premier, Campbell Newman, who said he likes the notion of separating North Queensland from the “woke inner city” of Brisbane, the state capital. Newman did fully endorse Canavan’s proposal, but he said it was an idea worth contemplating. Queensland is a very large state geographically, he said, and northerners have long believed that lawmakers in Brisbane don’t pay attention to their views or needs.
Gerard Rennick, Independent senator and formerly with the Liberal national Party, said he had “no problems” with Canavan’s proposal. Speaking of the “regions,” an Australian term for the more rural parts of a state, Rennick said those areas need better representation especially given their disproportionate contribution to the economy.
Plenty of politicians think it’s a bad idea, of course. Green party senator Penny Allman-Payne said the idea is “divisive,” and said she doesn’t “pit people” who live in rural areas against those who live in cities.
