I understand the Chief Minister is travelling to Canberra later on today and has a meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow morning. Can the Chief Minister explain the purpose of his visit to Canberra?

ANSWER

Mr Speaker, I take the opportunity to say to this House that it isn’t often that the Chief Minister would seek leave of absence from the House except if it was absolutely important to the Northern Territory. I will be flying this afternoon to Sydney where I’ll be meeting with the Premier of South Australia, Mr John Olsen, and on Wednesday morning we will have an audience and, I would imagine, some tight discussions with the Prime Minister with regards to where we are with the railway project.

The consortia bids have been received by the Australian Railways Corporation. Those consortia bids have been analysed. A recommendation has been made by the Railways Corporation as to who should be the successful consortia, and that recommendation will be put to the Cabinets of both the Northern Territory and the South Australian governments, in our case, today. However, I’m not quite sure the day it goes to the South Australian government. Next Monday I’m told.

I will be briefing the Prime Minister on the results of the Railway Corporation’s recommendation. I will also be saying to the Commonwealth that the contribution from the Commonwealth, which at the moment stands at $100m, equal to $100m from South Australia and $100m from the Northern Territory, needs to be boosted. It can be boosted in many ways, not the least being the $100m from the Commonwealth, as people would note from the budget papers, which flows over a 3 year period. Simply providing that money over a one year period would make a significant difference to the financial calculations that have been done with regards to the railway.

This is a very sensitive period for the railway project. My Minister for AustralAsia Railways is under great stress at the moment with regards to this project. Without wishing to stand here and claim success, I can tell you that, as your Chief Minister, I feel extremely hopeful we can walk out of the discussion with the Prime Minister tomorrow, announce that we are moving to the next stage, and that means announcing to all that a successful consortia has been chosen. That then will lead to the detailed negotiations leading to the striking of a tender towards the end of the year, with construction beginning early in the year 2000.

Members: Hear, hear!