Science Desk

NEW research has shown that Australia is moving north faster than was thought.

The island continent, which broke off from Gondwanaland about 33 million years ago, has been generally drifting north on its own tectonic plate ever since.

It used to be thought that this drift was at about 7 centimetres a year but new calculations suggest it is much faster and actually accelerating.

“Creates havoc with GPS and Google Maps, and that’s only the start,” said Les Gripe of Tectonic Shifts Australia, a pressure group concerned about the implications of continental drift on the future of Australia. “We’re headed slap bang into China. I mean, fuck, where will your nuclear submarines be then?”

Australian Government sources have played down the political aspects of the discovery, but it is acknowledged in Canberra that once Australia crosses the controversial Nine-Dash Line in the South China Sea, relations between the two countries may become strained.

“Too bloody right they will,” commented Gripe. “They’ll claim we’re part of China.”

Herbert Roster Roger, explorer and Sino-Australian history expert, says it’s more likely that Australia will be claiming China as part it its territory. “Oh, yes, it’s Australia that is on the move; the invader, so to speak. There’s a good argument for right of conquest being asserted. I think we’d receive a sympathetic ear at the United Nations.”

But what about China’s veto at the UN?

“Naturally, that would pass to Australia along with sovereignty. Beijing knows all this and is making plans to deal with it. Canberra is hoping that time will be its friend. Nothing changes, does it?”