ABSTRACT

This chapter argues that population policy in remote areas continues to be informed by views of these areas as 'frontiers'. Frontierism leads to differential treatment of sections of the population, making it very difficult to achieve the ambitions of stability and 'balance' that are often portrayed as the raison d'être of population policy. Virtually all documents professed the remote Norths to be seeking population growth, through increased fertility, immigration from various sources and retention or recapture of local populations. Frontier demography considers the marginalisation of Indigenous groups. The specific challenges of the frontier, to grow, to balance and to stabilize, can bring regional population policy into conflict with national policy. The settlement policies across the regions promote the value of the two or three large urban centres as the sites for tertian and quaternary development, fostering of creative and knowledge classes and as necessary to achieve some level of local critical mass of markets and producers.