‘Everybody wants to rule the world’, sang Tears for Fears, a line later reimagined by Lorde that still resonates today. In northern Australia, everybody wants something: Defence wants resilience; Indigenous communities want opportunity; states want infrastructure; and the federal government wants deterrence. Yet siloed decision-making between governments, departments and agencies means that critical issues, from sealed roads to fuel security, are rarely tackled in a holistic sense. We should find a way to break down these silos and invest together in the infrastructure that secures the nation and its people.
The Peninsula Development Road (PDR) on Cape York is one such case study. Stretching from Lakeland to Weipa, this vital artery remains partly unsealed: 145 km of it is subject to flooding and closures during the wet season. For residents of remote Cape communities, this means limited access to goods and services, higher costs of living, and an ongoing sense of neglect. For Defence, it means something even more consequential: the Royal Australian Air Force’s Scherger base can effectively be cut off by road for months each year. The base is located at the northern end of the PDR and is central to Australia’s ability to cover approaches to northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea.
That vulnerability matters. If, during operations, the PDR floods, Defence would be unable to sustain overland fuel and resupply to Scherger. Refuelling by sea through Weipa is strategically fraught as it is vulnerable to blockade by submarines or sea mines. Air tankers, already stretched thin in any realistic conflict scenario, couldn’t reliably fill the gap. A single unsealed road threatens to undermine the credibility of our northern air posture.
This isn’t an isolated case. It’s emblematic of a broader challenge across northern Australia: everyone sees the value of infrastructure, but no one agency or level of government feels able, or willing, to pay the full bill. Defence cannot justify spending billions on roads, ports and energy grids that’ll be used every day by communities and industries. State governments lack the fiscal capacity to deliver projects with national-security value. The Office of Northern Australia sits awkwardly in between, able to coordinate, but without the authority or budget to close the gap. The result is a stalemate, which in turn breeds vulnerability.
Road funding is normally split evenly between the federal and state governments, but this is insufficient here. For infrastructure such as the PDR, the stakes are national, not just regional. A sealed PDR would enhance Defence’s ability to project and sustain force in the north, reduce grocery costs in Indigenous communities, and strengthen economic development across Cape York. It would address the disadvantage while reinforcing deterrence. This is the kind of dual-use investment that should be funded differently, for example on an 80–20 federal-state split or through targeted national-security infrastructure funding streams.
Yet beyond the funding mechanics lies a more profound truth: Australia has never resolved how to weigh and coordinate competing interests in the north. Defence has plans. The states have priorities. The federal government has frameworks and offices. But these all remain siloed. Each portfolio makes decisions through its own narrow lens without an integrated national framework to bring them together. The PDR illustrates what happens when the lenses don’t align: a strategically critical road left partly unsealed for decades.
This lack of integration is not unique to Cape York. It’s visible in the Northern Territory, where Defence requirements for port access, fuel storage and road connectivity often rub against state priorities or commercial constraints. It’s visible in Western Australia, where critical minerals corridors remain bottlenecked by rail and energy limitations. It’s visible in every conversation about who pays for what in the north, whether it’s Defence, the federal government, the states or private industry.
The first step forward is to acknowledge that Defence cannot, and should not, cover the full cost of every kilometre of road or megawatt of power. Equally, states cannot be expected to carry national-security infrastructure alone. We need a new model that explicitly recognises the dual-use nature of northern infrastructure and allows beneficiaries to fairly share costs. Defence may contribute a strategic premium, the federal government a nation-building dividend, and states their jurisdictional share. Industry, too, can play a role, particularly where resource projects stand to benefit.
Second, the Office of Northern Australia should be strengthened, not as a passive coordinator, but as a driver of integrated planning with real budgetary leverage. Without a body empowered to cut through the silos, the cycle of fragmented decision-making will continue.
Finally, policymakers must be willing to see disadvantage in the north not just as a social issue but as a national-security risk. Resentment in communities left behind is itself a vulnerability that adversaries can exploit. National security isn’t only about ships, planes and bases. It’s also about whether Australians in remote Cape communities feel connected, valued and supported by their government.
The unsealed sections of the PDR are, in the end, just a road. But roads connect more than communities; they connect policy domains. Sealing the PDR would link Indigenous development with defence posture, social cohesion with deterrence, and state priorities with Commonwealth strategy. It would show that when everyone wants something, the answer isn’t stalemate, but shared responsibility.
If ‘everybody wants to rule the world’, then everybody should also share in the responsibility of securing the nation. In northern Australia, that means sealing the roads, building the ports and powering the grids that underpin both community wellbeing and national defence. The costs are real, but the costs of a continued stalemate will be far greater.