Lake Argyle in Western Australia's remote Kimberley suggested for future 'second capital'

Updated

There has long been talk of the need to more densely populate Australia's north, and Lake Argyle, on the border of Western Australia and the Northern Territory, has been earmarked by an architecture company as the ideal location.

Apart from centres like Cairns and Darwin, much of the top end remains empty, with the isolation and climate proving a difficult sell.

Lake Argyle in the East Kimberley, near Kununurra, is currently home to 20,000 crocodiles and less than a dozen people.

The enormous waterway, created by the damming of the Ord River in the 1960s, has been identified as the perfect site for a second hypothetical national capital.

Landscape architecture company Ecoscape said a new northern capital on the shores of Lake Argyle could sustain a population of 150,000 people.

The plans include an international airport which could connect the East Kimberley with Asian centres like Jakarta and Hong Kong.

"We just thought here's a perfect opportunity and such beautiful scenery," Ecoscape environmental scientist David Kaesehagen said.

Whether we just continue on the sort of old line of building onto existing cities, or we venture out and build a new city, is yet to be determined. I hope we're brave, and I hope we take a bold step. David Kaesehagen, Ecoscape

"So we started looking at that in terms of more detail about how you'd build a new, modern, sustainable city which looks at using modern technology and meets the challenges of particularly hot environments."

The site has water, land and sunshine in abundance.

"It's got industries around it, it's got mining and agribusiness, it's got a whole range of different industries which can attract and hold people, so the place itself has got such intrinsic beauty that that works to glue people to place," Mr Kaesehagen said.

"There are so many opportunities here, there are more than 70 islands here, you can imagine resorts on different islands, you can imagine Australians really enjoying themselves in this beautiful part of the country.

"Not many people get to experience it, and those that do ... find it breath-taking, so I can sort of see this place as a great site for a conurbation of some sort, imagine it."

Mixed reactions to bold plan

The proposal has had a mixed response from locals.

Tour operator Greg Smith said it is inevitable that the area will develop but part of its attraction is the remoteness.

"One side of me says we want to keep it remote, and we don't want an enormous city here, the other side of me says there are big advantages in bringing people into the area, you bring a lot more facilities and a lot more recreation facilities possibly and things like that," he said.

"A lot of people would definitely say, 'we like the remote, we don't want lots of people here, and industry and so forth,' but I think it's inevitable the population in this area will gradually increase anyway.

"Finding the people that want to be in the northern part of Australia, who can handle the climate, I think it would be a tough sales pitch but it's not impossible."

Even supporters of the proposal concede it is ambitious in scope and will take a government with big vision to make it happen.

"I think we're poised to look at the development of northern Australia, the timing is right over the next 10 or 20 years," Mr Kaesehagen said.

"Whether we just continue on the sort of old line of building onto existing cities, or we venture out and build a new city, is yet to be determined. I hope we're brave, and I hope we take a bold step."

Topics: urban-development-and-planning, regional-development, kununurra-6743

First posted