In 1953 the Australian Government looked at the States' boundaries and decided it would be far more sensible to give the Northern Rivers portion of New South Wales to Queensland and redraw the new state boundaries to the South of Grafton. Sir Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister at the time, officiated at the ceremony. Of course there was a lot of spitting and cursing but generally this was regarded as an obvious move, given that Brisbane was the nearest capital city and major service supplier, and the Northern Rivers were quite inaccessible from Sydney due to the poor highways and electricity grids at that time.
As well as vastly improving the reliability of services to the region, it would transfer to Queensland the troubling question of the couple of million aborigines who had been forcibly exiled to Central Australia during the 1940s but who were now returning home and causing a bit of a problem. In those days what Sydney wanted, Sydney got - dump that problem in the hands of Queensland.
Over the next few decades quite a few Queenslanders moved into the Northern Rivers as part of the normal population "churn" but currently only comprise around 27% of the population, the remainder being NSW descendants who still identify as NSW people, plus a significant population of local aboriginal peoples.
Back then in the 1950s it was considered a minor shuffling of borders because it was totally inconceivable that Australia would ever disintegrate back into individual states, as happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the so called Velvet Revolution.
Now Independent NSW wants the Northern Rivers Back from its independant neighbouring State Queensland, has occupied the Kingscliff military base and harbour and have held a referendum with the population in the Northern Rivers.
Australia = USSR (edit: of course USSR did
NOT mean Russia, always a common misconception in the West)
NSW = Russia
QLD = Ukraine
Sir Robert Menzies = Kruschev backed by the Supreme Soviet.
Northern Rivers = Crimea
Aborigines = Crimean Tartars
well more or less. B)
I reckon the wash up will be, that if Russia refrains from invading historical Ukraine itself then the Ukrainians will probably (quietly) be glad to quit Crimea, Russia will build a bridge over the narrow straits between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to supply the area and all sweet again.
crimea.jpeg
