Late 2015 and September 2016 postscript

Some hopes and dreams can last for centuries due to their seductively powerful, ‘common sense’ appeal. The economically minded, democratic and philanthropically inclined British colonists from 1860s South Australia would be very comfortable—if disappointed in the glacial progress—with the ongoing intentions to develop the northern half of the ‘great central state’ functioning as an advanced market democracy, producing wealth and trading with Asia (Cross 2011). The Northern Territory Government’s strategic planning documentFraming the futurerepeats the century and a half old mantra citing the desire to ‘strengthen the Territory’s role as the gateway between Australia and Asia’