Dust off the old 308s boys, we're being invaded

I heard a story this morning about the Maldives archipelago and how they will soon not exist as a country because the rising sea levels caused by global warming will render their islands paradise (which mostly stands less than a metre above sea level) nothing but annoying sandbars on the way to Sir Lanka.

So they are looking for land. Reports from the newly elected president of Maldives indicate that he is looking to squirrel away funds from the country's tourism income to buy a new homeland somewhere. He mentioned three countries, India (population 1147 million, population density 349 per km²) Sir Lanka (population 19 million, population density 319 per km²) and Australia (population 21 million, population density 2.6 km²). Hmm... wonder who he is backing?

I also heard a delightful report of about an Australian country community (possibly NSW, can't find the link) who welcomed the news and announced that their community was perfect for the soon to be homeless Maldivians. Quote from memory "We have cheap land prices and we welcome people of all nationalities." Perhaps what this kind gentleman did not realise is that the Maldivians would be wanting to purchase that land in order to annex it from Australia and create a new state of the Maldives. Bless him though.

Raises the point though. Australia has a ridiculously low population density.

The common argument is that Oz has a small number of people because most of it is desert that can't support a polulation. I used to think that, but you only have to look at the thriving country of MiddleEastestan to see that we can actually do alright in the desert.

Shit, thirty minutes drive from where I and 4 million other people are living it is pure desert sand dunes, and the only reason I can observe this from a fifty story apartment building is because some mad bastard decided to build a city here. OK, Sydney Harbour's worth of oil may have something to do with it but the point is that humans have shown their prowess at living in pretty much every conceivable climate.

Plus, while the center of Australia might be a little much for most people, we still have shitloads of good land hanging around unpopulated. The reason for this is that we had European explorers who arrived here and wanted to live somewhere that resembled their homeland for at least a few weeks of the year. If we had been colonised by Philipinos I swear the bottom half of Australia would be almost empty, save for the smallish capital of the Southern Territory where everyone was a little weird and wore jumpers all year round.

Look at Northern Queensland. There are a few million (redneck, fuckwit) people living there quite happily. There is no reason that the other side of Australia can't be the same. The Kimberly region is ripe for population explosion. To quote from Wikipedia:

It covers an area of 423,517 square kilometres (163,521 sq mi), which is about three times the size of England or comparable to the size of California or 15% larger than Japan or twice the size of Victoria or one sixth the size of Western Australia. It has a population of 38,000 est.

If the predictions of our most prominent doomsayers come to fruition then the people will come a knocking soon. How long are people of the world going to ignore that a fucking paradise is lying undisturbed over in WA just because most Aussies wont live there because you can't get channel 7?

In fact, given the vast areas, I would not be surprised to find a whole community of Maldivians already living there. I mean come on, check out our utopian wiki page. The time is right for a disinformation campaign surely?

I say fuck it. Let everyone in. We'll start a new Europe in Australia and enter into a dark age as the Neo-Maldivians battle for control of West-Kimberlia with the Sudanese (who will have surely realised they are missing out by now). We'll just fall back to WWII lines and protect South Eastern Australia. Admit it, if we lost Perth tomorrow how long would it take anyone to notice?

Adelaide is included though. Well, maybe we can let the lines fall back as far as the Coonawarra.

Need to protect our reds.