Islands uninhabitable without sea wall: MP

The federal government's refusal to fund sea walls on six Torres Strait islands could leave them uninhabitable in just a few years, an opposition MP warns.

Warren Entsch, whose Leichhardt electorate covers the six islands, wrote to regional affairs minister Simon Crean seeking $22 million to build the sea walls as a buffer against king tides.

In his reply Mr Crean said responsibility for the walls lay with the Torres Strait Regional Council and the Queensland government.

Mr Entsch says the issue needs urgent attention.

"If it's not addressed, they're going to have to forcefully relocate these people," he told AAP on Friday.

"The infrastructure on the islands is 50 years old. It's failing. It's buggered.

"The first king tide came four years ago. It's breached. [Floods] will happen every year now, because there's no protection."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said her government was working to help the islands deal with climate change, but would not commit to funding the sea walls.

"While we were in the Torres Strait we launched our adaptation strategy for climate change," she told reporters in Cairns.

"This is a document that has a lot of relevance in the Torres Strait and which is attracting both national and international attention.

"We're very happy to work with the Federal Government to keep the people of the Torres Strait safe if we do see those changes occurring."

Ms Bligh said she was in contact with Mr Crean about the Torres Strait's plan to secede from Queensland and become a self-governing territory of Australia.

"Those discussions are ongoing but I would expect that some time in 2012 we'll see a process formalised by which that could be taken forward as an idea," she said.

Mr Entsch said the change could be the only way for the region to be taken seriously by the federal government.

"It's the only way they're going to be heard at the moment," he said. "Sometimes these things are a call of desperation,

"What'd really fix it is if they had a vote at the United Nations, because then they'd get $220 million."