RE: Interesting older article Australia and ChinaWhaler. Its not clear to me that the Constitutional powers that the Australian federal government used in the Northern Territory could also be utilized with respect to States. In other words, it may be that the Australian Federal Government is in a similar position to the Canadian Federal government which, I believe, continues to exercise authority over the NWT (if it wishes) but cannot exercise similar authority over the natural resources of the provinces.
Federations are darn complicated.