A 300 metre wide strip of dirt in the middle of nowhere almost
brought the Northern Territory and Queensland to blows in a
border dispute that is still unresolved. The boundary between
the pair, the Fraser Government was told in 1982, was not as it
seemed on the ground or in the nation's atlases. According to
the NT, in documents released today by the National Archives,
the boundary as claimed by Queensland was in fact part of the
Territory. In the 1880s a line was actually mapped on the ground
between what was then South Australia and Queensland which was
supposed to follow 138 degrees east longitude. But over time,
and with better mapping, it came to be known that the boundary
was not set correctly. By the 1960s with better information came
to hand it became clear that Queensland was at least 300m into
the Northern Territory and in some cases up to 600m. Documents
provided to Canberra suggested that while there was a
gentlemen's agreement on the boundary it had never been legally
proclaimed. Demanding resti