LETTER : Historical centre of Australia

From Mr Patrick Cosgrave

Sir: Hamish McRae's article "The loneliness of the long-distance city", 12 May), fascinating though it is, misses out a point of great interest about Australia and the Australian constitution.

Australia has, during the period of the last generation, been looking outward. But there is one issue on which she should look inward. That is the matter of the status of the Northern Territory. The Territory is the historical centre of the information revolution of which Mr McRae writes: Alice Springs was the centre, in 1872, of the first Australian information link with the outside world. Today, that beautiful town hosts not only the Flying Doctor service, but the School of the Air as well.

Yet the territory is denied statehood and is ruled in a haphazard way from Queensland. The argument that there is an insufficiently large population to sustain statehood is nonsense.

Just as the territory is at the geographical centre of the nation, she is at its moral heart, too. It is time to change.

Yours faithfully,

PATRICK COSGRAVE

London, SW4

12 May