Emptiness Attenuated

Abstract

In 1972 the first federal Labor government in twenty-three years was elected to office. Thus Gough Whitlam, who had been among the north’s most articulate advocates in the 1960s, became prime minister. Soon afterward, he established a Department of Northern Development, fulfilling a long-standing promise of the Labor Party. The portfolio was given to Rex Patterson, champion of the north and the most intellectually formidable critic of Bruce Davidson’s strictures against its development. The stars seemed in alignment for the ultimate assault on the empty north. But it was not to be. The new minister was politically ineffectual and his department hamstrung. Once in office, northern development slid further and further down Whitlam’s list of priorities. Despite the establishment of the first federal department charged with engineering northern development, that ambition did not become a compelling issue in federal politics and the urge to fill the empty spaces dwindled.